


A Game of Thrones and a House of Cards

by The_Immaculate_Bastard



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, American Politics, First Lady!Cersei Lannister, Multi, Stark!Jon Snow, president!Robert Baratheon, surprise pairings to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-13 01:09:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4501998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Immaculate_Bastard/pseuds/The_Immaculate_Bastard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the death of Vice President Jon Arryn, the Baratheons summer with the Starks in the Hamptons so President Robert Baratheon can ask Ned Stark to be the next Vice President of the United States. Ned's decision irrevocably changes the lives of the Stark family.</p><p>Basically, the great houses of Westeros are the political dynasties of America. Chaos ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> To give more information...Jon joins the NYPD, Robb takes over as President and CEO of Stark Enterprises, Sansa studies abroad at Oxford, Arya joins the U.S. Marines, Brandon is a genius and prodigy, Rickon has an emotional behavior disturbance, and so much more!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Starks in this chapter yet, but I will give you some background info for our favorite family.
> 
> Eddard "Ned" Cregan Stark (b. December 20, 1959)  
> Catelyn "Cat" Celia Tully Stark (b. March 29, 1963)  
> Jon Arthur Stark (b. July 1, 1983, the son of Ned Stark and Ashara Dayne, who were married at the time)  
> Robert "Robb" Cregan Stark (b. February 11, 1988)  
> Sansa Lyanna Stark (b. August 28, 1992)  
> Arya Minisa Stark (b. May 15, 1995)  
> Brandon "Bran" Hoster Stark (b. August 1, 1996)  
> Rickon Edwyle Stark (b. July 20, 1999)

**May 2013 - New York City**

“There was an explosion in Baghdad yesterday,” the female talking head on the television droned on as Waymar Royce sat at his dining room table, carefully cutting his bacon and eggs as he broke his fast. This was his routine. Bacon and eggs every day before his shift started and his patrol began. Occasionally it was a steak omelet, and sometimes he allowed himself a pancake, but he preferred protein to start the day. Protein and caffeine, that is—the diet of a policeman.

“Thanks, Janine,” said the male talking head, his voice patronizing as he meaningless thanked the blonde beauty delivering the tedious international news. “Now, for the big story of the day, the funeral for the late Vice President Jon Arryn occurred today in Washington, D.C. President Robert Baratheon delivered a touching eulogy before the coffin was placed on a train to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The funeral party saw the train leave in what has to be the greatest state funeral for a Vice President in American history. The tribute is fitting for Vice President Arryn, whose foreign policy expertise and moderate reputation facilitated countless bills to be passed for the Baratheon administration. If you doubt his importance to President Baratheon, just listen to the President’s eulogy for the beloved statesman.”

The talking head shut his mouth as the news started to run a clip of the funeral services. Waymar tore his gaze from his food to watch. He saw the camera focus on President Baratheon, who seemed to have grown in girth since the last time Waymar watched the news. The President’s beard also seemed peppered with new gray hairs—the price so many presidents pay as the four to eight year term ages them twenty years or more.

“Jon Arryn was the best man knew. He still is. I met Jon Arryn when I was a freshman in college, and he was my professor. He scared the living daylights out of me the first time that he walked into the lecture hall. Quite frankly, he terrified me as Vice President.”

Waymar heard the funeral attendees laugh, mutedly, as a crowd only can during a funeral.

“But it was that fear that fed me. That made me a better person. That made a better politician. That was what Jon Arryn did: he was always able to bring the best out of everyone who surrounded him. His was a presence that this country, that this government sorely needed. Words cannot begin to describe how much he will be missed by myself, by my wife—"

The camera flashed a shot of the beautiful First Lady, Cersei Lannister-Baratheon. The blonde hair and the stunning eyes mesmerized even Waymar, who had long been disillusioned from years in New York. It puzzled Waymar that the First Lady would hyphenate her name. Even Jackie Kennedy just added names rather hyphenate.

 _Lannister-Baratheon certainly holds a lot more weight,_ Waymar harrumphed as he filled his mouth with a forkful of eggs. _Lannister-Baratheon…finally a name that is greater than the sum of its parts_.

“…he will never be forgotten, and we will never see his like again,” the President finished the eulogy, and Waymar glanced at his television screen once more. The talking head reappeared, much to Waymar’s annoyance. He had had enough of the public mourning of the Vice President. Not that he disliked Jon Arryn. His father worked with the man, and the Royce family had worked with the Arryns for generations, ever since both families arrived in Colorado on a wagon train. He had even voted for the man, having more faith in Baratheon-Arryn ticket than the Targaryen-Connington one, though the past five years have made most of the country wonder if they made the wrong choice in the 2008 election. The country had been dazzled by the Baratheon-Lannister marriage. The beauty of Cersei Lannister and the handsomeness of Robert Baratheon—six years ago, at least—combined with the obscene wealth of the Lannisters had blinded the country to what it meant to have such patricians in the White House.

After finishing his bacon, Waymar returned his attention to the news and subjected himself to the talking head once more, only to learn more about what the entire country wanted to know.

“We have Owen Merryweather, the former White House Press Secretary to President Aerys Targaryen, to discuss the speculation over who the next Vice President will be. Owen, when do you expect we will hear from the White House who the President’s choice for the next Vice President will be.”

The camera panned to Owen Merryweather, an approachable and handsome man. “Well, John, I imagine we will hear before the fall, but you have to remember that a Vice President has not needed to be replaced since Gerald Ford replaced Spiros Agnew back in the 1970s, and even that took over two months until Ford assumed the office of the Vice President.”

“So, it is currently May, and you’re saying that we may not have a Vice President until September?” the talking head sounded incredulous, standing on the imaginary high horse that so many news anchors do. Waymar’s father had taught him to distrust the news media, but that advice left Waymar with little idea of what was going on in the world.

“Well, I’m saying that I believe we will have a Vice President before the end of the year, but President Baratheon has a divided Congress, despite his high approval ratings. He needs a confirmation that will go smoothly for those approval ratings to remain high, therefore he needs to think long and hard about who his nomination will be. He also has the good fortune of good ratings to bide his time until his team can find and vet a candidate who will easily go through the approval process.”

“Do you have predictions on who the his nominee may be?”

“Well, I could speculate, but I am as much in the dark as the rest of the country. I have sources in the Baratheon administration who say that even _they_ do not know what the President is thinking on this matter, so…only time will tell,” Merryweather smiled, apparently amused at his own ignorance. Waymar rolled his eyes.

“So you have no idea what is going on?” The talking head looked as though he felt cheated that this “expert” could not answer the question that every news station wanted answered.

“I could speculate, but they would only be…speculations,” Merryweather responded, smiling still, though Waymar thought that his expression showed his desperation at not being portrayed as a fraud. “You know as well as I do that President Baratheon plays his cards close to his chest, and it is likely that we will not know for some time.”

Waymar could see the sweat on Merryweather’s face, and felt himself smirk at the unexpected reality television on his television screen.

“Thank you, Owen Merryweather,” said the talking head, a smiled slapped onto his faced in the forced manner that Waymar had seen at the banquets and galas that he attended growing up as a Royce of the Rocky Mountains.

Waymar promptly turned off the television, not wanting to suffer through another minute of misguided suspicions and possible even psychic predictions about the political landscape of the country. Though he was not surprised by the display or the intrigue surrounded by the potential nominee, he still found himself annoyed by the public’s ignorance to the basic facts surrounding the political process. Sure, they had voted Robert Baratheon and Jon Arryn into office, but what had either man really done to fix the country’s debt, solve the hotly debated environmental crisis, or end the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan? The next Vice President wouldn’t solve these issues either, regardless of how the anchors spun the story. The next Vice President would be just as compromised as Robert Baratheon had found himself, and there was nothing that the American people could do nor were even willing to do fix it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was created in large part because of the following:
> 
> 1) I was bored.  
> 2) I have consumed far too many political dramas and thrillers, including but not limited to _The West Wing_ (one of the titles I considered was "The Westerosi Wing"), _House of Cards_ , _Scandal_ , _Boss_ , _The American President_ , _The Ides of March_ , _The Daily Show_ and CNN.  
>  3) I wanted to write about the Starks in the 21st-century.  
> 4) I wanted to see what I could come up with in regards to adapting the political and cultural landscape of Westeros to the 21st-century United States.
> 
> Also, this AU also rewrites American history in that the 2008 election saw the Republican Baratheon-Arryn ticket win. Mind you, I'm actually a fan of Obama, but for the purposes of fanfiction, I have rewritten history. I hope you understand.


	2. BRAN

**May 2013** **\- Washington D.C.**

Bran had watched the train depart, still feeling the strange numbness that comes with one’s first funeral. During the funeral, the train, and then the wake, he found himself feeling more and more empty at the thought of saying goodbye to Jon Arryn, the mentor to his father, the man whom he had known since he was a baby, the Vice President of the United States. _Is this what it’s supposed to be like? Is this what it all means?_

Bran was the top of his class, he was on track to graduate early from his elite private school, and he had already been promised a spot at MIT following his graduation. He was a member of MENSA and he was widely regarded as the brightest of his siblings, which is saying a lot when someone has two older brothers who were war heroes, a sister who was the top of her class at Harvard and who fascinated the American public for her beauty and personal life, and another sister who was about to enter the Marine Corps. He was by all accounts a genius, but even he was surprised by the onslaught of emotions from a funeral.

There was grief. There was anger. There was denial. There was shock, there was bitterness, there was laughter. There were memories, which caused the most laughter and the most tears. There was the acute feeling of being overwhelmed, and then the feeling of complete loss and emptiness.

Bran till remembered that last time he had seen Jon Arryn. The Starks had visited the Arryn’s beach house on Lake Erie which was name the Eyrie by Jon Arryn’s great-grandfather. Bran distinctly remembered that was the summer he realized he did not care for Aunt Lysa. Of course, the Starks had also visited the Arryns at the family’s estate in Colorado the Thanksgiving before that summer, but it was a different affair. The Baratheons had been there also, though Bran did not mind as much. Sansa had spent most of that visit with Mya Stone and Myranda Royce, her friends from Harvard who lived near the Arryn homestead. He knew little of why Sansa made herself scarce when the Baratheons were in attendance, but he knew it had to do with her break up with Joffrey.

Bran felt a hand on his shoulder

“Are you alright, Bran?” he looked up and saw Jon, his eldest brother staring down at him. A slight smile painted Jon’s face, though there was still sadness in his eyes. Jon Arryn had, after all, been Jon’s namesake and godfather. Jon Stark had older memories of Jon Arryn than he even had of his stepmother.

“I’m fine,” Bran was robotic, mostly because he did not know how he should respond. For all his genius, emotions were the most challenging for him.

Jon nodded, the smile still on his face. “You’ve done well today. Father’s very proud of you.”

Despite the fact that Bran did not need it, Jon’s affirmation still felt good to him. He nodded in response.

“Jon!” Jon turned and greeted a young man from some family, though Bran could not recall the name at the moment. Even though Jon was often a source of comfort at public occasions such as these, Bran was grateful for the distraction, as he relished the opportunity to remain in his own mind rather than be drawn out.

So he watched. He had just finished reading the entire works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and wanted to test the skills he had observed Sherlock Holmes employ on countless occasions.

He could tell from the light sheen on Cersei Lannister-Baratheon’s face and hands that she needed a glass wine, and he inferred that the three bottles she had consumed on her own a few Thanksgivings ago had increased in the year and half since that particular holiday.

Bran walked towards his parents while keeping an eye on the First Lady, as he felt that he would be less likely to be cornered by someone standing next to the honorable Eddard Stark and Catelyn Tully Stark. He saw the President go to his wife, and though she did not look at him with hatred in her eyes, Bran could see the anger in her posture when Robert Baratheon put his hand on her back. Bran would not credit himself for inferring that by the interaction—he had seen enough of the already imploded Baratheon marriage in the many family get-togethers his father and the President insisted upon having.

Bran felt his back stiffen when he realized that the President and the First Lady of the United States were making their way towards the Stark family.

He could see the tension in the First Lady’s neck when his mother and father greeted her and the President.

“Mr. President,” his mother shook the man’s hand and bowed her head slightly, and despite the formality in her voice, the warmth that was also there told him that his mother was at ease with Robert Baratheon, even though he was the most powerful man in the free world.

“Cat,” the President bellowed as he tossed Catelyn Stark’s hand aside and hugged her. Bran smirked at his mother’s expression, although it soon morphed into a warm smile, a remnant of her days as the belle of Jackson, Mississippi.

“Ned,” the President turned his attention to Bran’s father once he released his mother from the bear hug he had engulfed her in. Bran felt a strange feeling when the President of the United States hugged the Governor of New York, like he needed to document with his camera phone. _This could be history, after all_ , Bran thought.

Once the President released Ned, it was the First Lady’s turn to be greeted. His mother gave the blonde woman an affectionate kiss on the cheek, though Bran could easily feel the coldness between the two women. He could also see the reserve in his father, and Bran could tell that this went beyond his father’s famed stoicism. He watched his mother smile at the President and attempt conversation with the First Lady. His father spoke to his childhood friend with a familiarity few men outside of those in the northeast ever experienced from Ned Stark. Yet his father avoided contact with the blonde. Aside from the greeting, Ned and Cersei barely spoke. Bran would have to do some investigating on that front later.

“Ned, Cat, what are your plans for the summer?” the President’s jovial tone seemed out of place at a state funeral.

His mother glanced at his father, as though they did not want to reveal what could be so easily Googled.

“Ned and I thought that we would take the family to the house in the Hamptons,” Cat said, nodding far more than was necessary.

“Ahh, the one in Georgica Pond?” the President questioned, though it was clear that he did not need an answer. “I haven’t been there since we were just out of college.”

“I remember,” Ned finally laughed. “I do believe that was the summer you burned down the gazebo.”

The President’s laughed echoed, and Bran glanced around to see people look at the large man. He did not miss the scowl that his Aunt Lysa shot at him.

“It was an old building,” Robert attempted to wave off the youthful indiscretion. He turned to his wife to explain, though she looked as though she would rather run through the capitol naked than listen to her husband. “That house had far more rooms than we needed, so we spent the night in the gazebo, drinking, laughing, and doing a few other things.”

Bran suspected that, if the President were not in a room full of witnesses, he would have made an obscene motion with his hand or mimic getting high with a gesture and facial trick.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t seen the rebuilt gazebo since you said your father took care of planning a new one,” Robert scratched his beard, and Bran realized just how gray it had become since the Thanksgiving when he had last seen the President. “And Cersei and I were talking just the other day about how going to Casterly Rock or Storm’s End this summer just didn’t seem…ideal.”

Bran could tell from the look the First Lady made that they had discussed no such thing, though he could understand the reasoning. Between the hurricanes that plagued Florida, where Storm’s End was located, and the forest fires and landslides in California, where the Lannisters had laid claim their domain back during the Gold Rush, that had been plaguing the country in the past two years, he understood the President’s reasoning.

 _Though his environmental record is more to blame than anything else_ , Bran mused. He turned away from the discussion, already bored since he knew where the idle talk was going, he saw Arya trying to catch his attention from across the room. She gestured at him to come to her, and Bran thought about leaving her, since she had been designated the Stark sibling stuck with Robin Arryn for the day when the siblings have rode together to the memorial location.

“Excuse me,” Bran nodded at the President and First Lady who both smiled genially, “Mr. President, Mrs. Baratheon.”

Bran nodded at his parents as well before leaving, his mother smiling at him for his manners. He could see the First Lady bristle slightly at the fact that he did not refer to her as Lannister-Baratheon.

Walking away from the scene that had disinterested him, he made his way to Arya, whose exasperation made it difficult to hide his amusement.

“Bran, why don’t you tell Robin about the kite you made for your AP Physics class this year?” The smile plastered onto Arya’s face barely masked her eye roll at their cousin, who did not seem to understand that his father was dead, laughing at inappropriate moments and throwing fits when he did not get his way; his behavior was a stark contrast to Bran’s emptiness. _Though I’m sure the President has already set the tone_.

To give Arya break, he attempted to share the project he had worked so hard on, but Robin quickly interrupted him to talk about his latest visit to the doctor. Bran understood that Robin was sickly, though he did not care to listen to another story of his cousin’s medical dramas. The boy had been diagnosed with leukemia as a toddler, but he had been in remission since he was seven. Of course, the juvenile diabetes had been diagnosed a few years later, and eventually seizures started as well. Bran read somewhere recently how pregnancies after the age 35 exponentially increased the likelihood of a premature labor and chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus. He quickly did the math, and thought it safe to assume that Lysa and Robin had drawn the short end of the stick.

“Sweetrobin,” Bran heard Lysa coo over his shoulder. He felt his aunt push past him to fawn over her son. “My sweet, come talk to your uncle Petyr.”

Lysa left as quickly as she had come, with Robin’s arm in her grip, not giving any notice to Arya or Bran. Bran watched her as she made her way towards the man whom she insisted upon calling “uncle,” which always caused her parents to look at each other in shock and awe at Lysa’s behavior. Bran had never really cared for his aunt, finding her to be annoying, needy, and jealous of his mother. He watched as his aunt pushed through the crowd—not that she needed to at her own husband’s funeral—and clutch the Secretary of the Treasury’s arm with desperation.

It was when Lysa dominated Petyr’s attention that Bran realized the Secretary had been talking to Sansa. He watched as the tall redhead fled the scene of Lysa and Petyr’s inappropriate reunion. He caught her eye, which prompted her to walk towards him and Arya. That was when a shift in the crowd occurred, and a tall blond blocked Sansa’s path, and an even taller, broad shouldered man behind him. The color seemed to drain from Sansa’s already pale face, and she looked like a deer lost in the headlights at the sight of her ex-boyfriend.

The former couple was far enough away that Bran did not know what they were saying, but he saw Joffrey’s self-assured arrogance dominate his sister, and he felt that he understood for the first time why she broke up with him, though she never spoke of it. Bran could not help but notice that the taller man, with a scarred face and dark eyes that usually looked so stormy, kept his distance from Sansa, although his gaze lay solely upon the redhead. Bran was intrigued that this man—the Hound, he had heard him called by the Baratheons in Colorado—looked upon Sansa with a peculiar emotion on his face, at least peculiar for a man dubbed the Hound.

 _Is that regret?_ Bran thought. _No, what would the Hound regret? Other than once having to kill a man to defend the President's son, but...even then...there was a reason._  All the same, Bran determined that there was nothing else the emotion could be, and was puzzled by the clear look of regret— _yes, yes, that is regret_ —on his face, a trait Bran never believed such a hardened member of the Secret Service could possess.

Bran saw another redhead appear next to Sansa, and before long Jon had joined Robb at her side. While Bran noticed the tension in his brothers’ interactions with Joffrey, he did not miss the slight nod that Jon gave to Sandor Clegane as the elder half of the Stark children walked away. Sansa guided her brothers to her original destination by Bran’s side.

“What was that about?” Bran asked casually. He noticed the looks that Jon and Robb briefly shot each other.

“Nothing,” Sansa insisted breathily, smiling at him all the while. “Joffrey just gave me the annual 'I won the break up competition’. How is our dear cousin?”

“Good Christ,” Arya exhaled. “San, he is a teenager now and _still_ has a crush on you. I thought people were supposed to grow out of that weird cousin-crush stage, right?”

“Arya!” Sansa whisper-chastised the rambunctious Stark daughter. Bran was always amused by how different his sisters were. Feminine Sansa and tomboy Arya. “People can hear you. You must speak quietly.”

“Aunt Lysa is his _mother_ ,” Jon mimicked Sansa’s quiet tone while also mocking her adherence to propriety with various gesticulations. Sansa remained unamused. “She is only our aunt, and look at the number she had done on us.”

Arya snickered while Sansa and Robb tried to hide their own smiles. All of the sudden, their mother appear next to them, her lips pursed.

“And just what is so amusing at funeral of the Vice President of the United States and your uncle?” Catelyn Stark’s features became severe as each word left her mouth. Sansa and Robb had the decency to look abashed, while Jon seemed to try to turn invisible, as he was want to do when Cat scolded them. Bran had realized when he was younger that Jon was not his mother’s son. When they deemed him old enough, his father explained that he had been married once before and that the woman died when Jon was barely a toddler. With this knowledge also came the sudden appearance (or rather notice) of Jon and Cat’s odd relationship. Jon often tried to go unnoticed because when he was noticed by Cat, it was rarely a good thing.

“Do not forget that people are watching that everything you do reflects on the Stark name,” she chided. “We will be leaving soon, however.”

“Mom, why does dad have that look on his face?” Arya asked. Bran looked over to their father who stood at the buffet table mindlessly eating a carrot. He did have _that_ look on his face.

“What look?” their mother asked innocently, though Bran knew his mother knew exactly what they were talking about.

“That look he gets when he knows he will need to veto a bill,” Arya answered, clearly not realizing that their mother wanted to maintain plausible deniability. They all knew that look, and their father did wear it whenever he needed to go against the state senate, but Bran also knew that their mother did not want such descriptions spoken aloud. _People are listening as well as watching_.

“Your father is just thinking through how we will handle this summer,” Cat started to explain, her eyes downcast as they were whenever she chose her words carefully. “The First Family will be joining us for a summer in the Hamptons.”

And with that announcement, the demeanor of the five Stark children present altered, and the air of humor that was there not a minute ago was now gone. Sansa's face had drained of color, Robb was carefully examining Sansa while Jon looked like he was being inconvenienced, a thought clearly shared by Arya as well. Bran could not deny the sentiment—a summer with the President of the United States would be a far cry from the relaxed Stark family vacations.

"Well, I think it is safe to say that none of us are looking forward to summer anymore," Arya announced with an air of finality that made her sound alarmingly like their mother, who did not look pleased. Whether Catelyn was unhappy with Arya's announcement or the prospect of spending the summer with the Baratheons, Bran did not know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me: are you intrigued yet? I now have 80 chapters planned, and I'm not even finished translating AGOT into this AU yet!


	3. CATELYN

 

**May 2013 – The Hamptons**

The Stark’s Hamptons estate was in a frenzy in the weeks leading up to the Baratheons’ arrival. Ned and Catelyn had agreed that she would go to the beach house to begin preparing for the summer, while Ned would remain at the Governor’s mansion in Albany. Catelyn was originally grateful to be alone for the first time in years, other than the servants who began arriving shortly after she did, but she quickly found that the she missed the rambunctiousness of her children and the steady noise of a house full of six children.

Sansa was the first of the Stark children to arrive, having finished her exams at Harvard and catching a flight from Boston to East Hampton. Her first real mother-daughter night with her daughter since she left Albany for the spring semester, Catelyn had bought a bottle of Chardonnay to share over dinner on the veranda with her eldest daughter. Sansa had stared wide-eyed at her mother when Catelyn poured a glass for her.

“Wine at dinner? You only let me do that at Christmas.”

“Yes,” Cat feigned exasperation at her daughter’s politeness. In truth, Catelyn loved that Sansa was so dedicated to propriety. It made her feel like she had done her job as a parent. “But you live on your own nine months out of the year, and I know you drink during that time, so why act like you’ve never drink wine? Besides, I saw an empty bottle of this in your dorm room, so I know you like this one.”

Sansa graciously reached for the crystal wine glass in front of her and took a tentative sip before reaching for the china plate of chicken piccata, sherried mushrooms, and lemon-roasted red potatoes. It was a classic item on the Stark family’s menu, and one that Cat knew would pair well with the unoaked Chardonnay.

As the two women began digging into their meals, Catelyn decided to jumpstart the dinner conversation, hoping to learn more about what Sansa had been up to for past six months. She had seen her daughter at the funeral for Jon Arryn, but the circumstances were not conducive to checking in with her children, especially after the President had invited the First Family on the Starks’ summer plans.

“So do you feel good about your exams?”

Sansa sighed, though Cat noted that she did not sound annoyed. “I think I did well, but my Old English class will probably kill my GPA.”

“Do you think you failed the course?”

“No, no,” Sansa responded quickly, “I just had 4.0 going into this semester, and I think I probably got a B, which means I’m probably not in the running for summa cum laude anymore.”

“Sansa, graduating from Harvard is a feat of its own,” Catelyn always admired Sansa’s determination when it came to education, but her daughter often put undue pressure on herself. “You need not worry about graduating with honors.”

“I do,” Sansa insisted, taking another sip of her wine, before continuing with a smile, “Starks graduate with honors.”

Catelyn smiled proudly at her daughter. “How are your friends? Myranda and Mya?”

“Good,” Sansa grinned this time, basking in her social success, which stood in glaring contrast to that of her siblings. It had always been easy for Sansa to make friends. Catelyn had thought more than once that Sansa would make a wonderful politician’s wife. “I was hoping to invite them to visit for a week this summer. They’ve never been to the Hamptons.”

Sansa peaked at her mother from the side of her eyes while placing a spoonful of the mushrooms in her mouth.

“What are their last names again?” Catelyn asked delicately, though Sansa’s darting glance told her that she understood the question.

“Myranda is the daughter of Nestor Royce, who was once a colleague of Jon Arryn,” Sansa dutifully shared the family history of her friends, while Catelyn wracked her brain trying to remember the Royce family from conversations with her sister or with her brother-in-law.

“He is related to Yohn Royce, then?”

“Cousins. Third or fourth, or something like that,” Sansa added.

“What about Mya?”

Sansa sipped some wine before answering.

“She’s a Stone, so not from a political family.”

“So you want your friends, Myranda Royce and Mya Stone, to come visit you while the First Family summer with us?” Catelyn placed her utensils on her place to reach for her wine.

“Friends who go to Harvard, yes,” Sansa pushed back. “Besides, Myrcella will like the company too.”

“I suppose we can make it work, but we already have tight quarters with the guest house accommodating the Secret Service.”

Sansa’s eyes shifted suddenly, and she quickly stuffed a potato in her mouth.

“Sansa?”

“Mhhmm?”

“Are you going to be comfortable with Joffrey staying here?”

Sansa looked surprised at the question, but she managed to mumble out a, “Mhhmm,” before another sip of wine crossed Sansa’s lips.

“You’ve never talked to me about why you broke up with him,” Catelyn began to pull at the thread that had gone untouched since Sansa’s senior of prep school. It had not missed Catelyn’s notice that Sansa had not openly dated anyone since breaking up with Joffrey her senior year of high school, though she suspected she did not want to know what her daughter got up to during the weekend bacchanals at university. Sansa would always be her beautiful Tully daughter with a Stark name, and she preferred not to know the private details of her sex life. So Catelyn only asked the typical questions any dutiful mother would ask her college-age daughter, while avoiding the many other questions any wise mother would never ask her college-age daughter. But this was a topic in which her curiosity had been piqued but never sated. She wanted to understand why her daughter broke up with one of the most eligible men in her age group, one with a good family name befitting of a Stark, and the eldest son of the President of the United States, no less.

“And I never shall,” Sansa stated while playing with her wine glass.

“Sansa, eight weeks in this house is not going to just fly by without tensions rising.”

“Mom, we weren’t applying to any of the same colleges, and I just wanted a clean break rather than drag on and be hurt later.”

Though a believable excuse, her daughter had never been good a liar. It had made raising Sansa easy, since she never even attempted to lie to her parents about where she was or who she was with. By the time she was a senior, she had learned that refusing to tell all of the details was enough for her to avoid lying and maintain some privacy.

“Alright,” Catelyn let the matter go to rest.

“I would also really like Jeyne to spendthesummerwithme,” Sansa blurted out before putting another potato in her mouth.

“What?!”

Gulping down the lemon-roasted starch, Catelyn watched Sansa reach for the wine.

“Sansa, slow down with the wine and talk to me.”

Her daughter still avoided eye contact, but at least opened her mouth to speak. “If I have to spend the summer with Joffrey staying in the same house, I would really appreciate another female who didn’t give birth to me. Or didn’t give birth to him. Or isn’t one of our sisters.”

“Where will Jeyne stay?”

“I have a queen-sized bed in my room. She can stay with me.”

"Sansa, you can't even share a bed with Arya when we go to Nantucket."

"That was because Arya, not me," Sansa exhaled as she defended herself. Her eldest always got awfully breathy whenever she got defensive.

"You have never been able to share a bed," Catelyn said, "or anything, for that matter."

"Well, I can bring myself to share a bed with Jeyne this summer," Sansa reached for her wine again. "Call it personal growth."

“So on top of your friends from college, you want Jeyne to stay with us?”

“Mom, I don’t ask much of you and dad—”

“No, not at all, just tuition for Harvard,” Catelyn listed calmly.

“Socially, I do everything you ask of me. I show up to Dad’s fundraisers, I chat up investors for Stark Enterprises, and I have never brought scandal to the family.”

Cat could not argue with that, though she had mixed feelings about allowing her daughter to win so easily. She could simply refuse her daughter the request to let Jeyne stay with them. Though Cat had always liked the girl, and knew her to be a good friend to Sansa, the southern belle and political wife in her knew that Jeyne Poole was not necessarily the best company for a summer with the First Family.

“She stays in your room,” Catelyn breathed out, and Sansa smiled in return. “And you need to review with her the protocols for interacting with the President and the First Lady.”

“I will,” Sansa smiled again, before taking another delicate sip of the wine.

They ate in silence for a few bites before her daughter decided to end the awkwardness.

“So, what major plans are there for the summer?”

“Well, we have our annual Fourth of July party,” Cat began to list the festivities that she was always tasked with planning during their summers in the Hamptons, on top of the new burden of having the Baratheons visiting. “Your father and I have our anniversary party in July.”

“Your anniversary?” A grin covered Sansa’s face. She often delighted in Cat and Ned’s anniversary each year, perhaps imagining herself throwing a celebration for her own anniversary someday. Cat smiled at her daughter’s romanticism.

“Twenty-six years.”

“Do you need help planning the party?”

Catelyn smiled at her daughter. “Your help is most welcome, sweetheart.”

“So, Fourth of July, your anniversary…and I’m guessing we’ll have plenty of birthdays between Bran, Rickon, and Jon.”

“And Tommen and Myrcella,” Catelyn added. Sansa nodded as she processed the countless summer children who would soon be in their midst. “Not to mention, going away parties for you and Arya.”

Though Catelyn would not have chosen such a path for her daughter, she could not help but feel proud of Arya for joining the U.S. Marines, for wanting to serve her country in the same manner as her father and elder brothers.

“Mom, I’m not leaving until October,” Sansa reminded her. “The program goes from October to June. A going away party in the summer would just be premature.”

“Alright, we won’t celebrate your departure until the fall, but Arya leaves for South Carolina in August.”

“I still can’t believe she did it,” Sansa stated in semi-awe. _Just like fire and ice_ , Catelyn mused as she pictured her eldest daughter, with her fire-red hair, standing next to her youngest daughter, with her ice-colored eyes. She could not have birthed two more different girls.

“It is a surprise, Sansa, but a remarkable feat no less. You should be proud of your sister for wanting to dedicate herself to such a life.”

“I’m not saying it was the wrong thing to do. I just can’t believe she actually enlisted.”

“You know your sister. She has always wanted to be just like her father and brothers.”

Those same brothers, plus Theon Greyjoy, arrived a few days after Sansa, all ready to help Catelyn with whatever she needed, as long as it did not interfere with their evening activities.

“We need a few days to relax before we have to be on our best behavior, Ms. Stark,” Theon grinned at her, seemingly attempting to soothe her the same way he charmed women into bed with him. Cat still blushed whenever she thought about the time Theon was caught with the caterer’s wife in the bathroom at their New York brownstone. For such a classically Midwestern young man, Theon behaved like anything but.

“Yes, but you will likely not be on your best behavior while cleaning out the guest, so you can start today.”

“Why do we need clean out the guest house, Catelyn?” Jon asked carefully. It pained Cat that she was not closer to her stepson, but she had no idea how to close that gap now that he was almost thirty.

“The Secret Service will be setting up in there as soon as the President and the First Family arrive.” Cat noticed Sansa’s posture shift, and she was once again reminded that she would need to be weary of any possible problems between her daughter and Joffrey Baratheon during his stay.

“Umm, if the Secret Service is going to be in here, then…uh…there are some things we need to take care of in the guest house,” Jon looked sheepish then as he confessed that there may be more to do than dusting and sweeping. Catelyn had always struggled with Jon, with her never knowing her place as his stepmother, and him never knowing his place her stepson. They rarely smiled around one another, and she hated that she could not be a good mother to the son Ned had with his late first wife. She had thought raising an infant who lost his mother as a toddler would be easier than stepping into the role while the mother was still alive; being stepmother to a child whose mother hated you was an impossible job, and she had observed as much in her many charities, but being a stepmother to anyone regardless of circumstance proved to be harder than raising her own children.

Though their insistence on cleaning out the guest house without her overseeing them had annoyed her at first, she found that she enjoyed the hum of the music that her sons, daughter, and Theon listened to around their nightly bonfires as they laughed and told each other stories of their time at college, or grad school, or, in Jon’s case, overseas (though she rolled her eyes when she started to smell what Jon alluded to earlier that day). It was welcome white noise to Cat, and it made her happy to hear her children laughing together. Ever since they started reaching adulthood, the Stark household held fewer and fewer children. Catelyn strongly suspected that this would be their last summer as a united Stark family. The purpose for the First Family’s visit had gone unspoken between her and Ned, though they both knew the reasons and the consequences for the family.

A few days after the boys’ arrival, they all departed from the Hamptons to go to Arya’s graduation in the middle of June, with the intention of the entire Stark family returning together once Arya had moved out of her dorm room. Catelyn felt the relief wash over her as Arya finally entered into the adult world, crossing the graduation stage to grab her diploma. Though the Starks had paid for Arya to attend the House of Black and White in the wilderness of Maine, one of the leading adventure schools in the country, there had always been concern that Arya’s wildness would prevent her from ever truly growing up. By some miracle, she had graduated, and with a spot secured at Colorado College once she completed her service as a Marine. While Catelyn would have preferred Arya go to college on the East coast, and at a school fit for a Stark, she was at least pleased with Arya’s decision to go to a private school. Regardless of the girl’s future, Catelyn could not deny the pride that she felt in her heart as Arya crossed the stage and reached for her diploma. She may not have been the easiest child, but she certainly was not the most difficult—that honor belonged to Rickon, who Cat was not even sure how to raise let alone educate.

As they left the House of the Black and White, Catelyn fought off a sense of foreboding deep in her stomach at the realization that though her family was reunited after months of separation only to be bombarded by the Baratheon clan in two short days.

That night, she sat upright in her bed while her husband was typing an email to Gage, their personal chef, about the menu for the week as well as Tommen’s many allergies. Catelyn was briefly reminded of her sister’s sickly son Robin, when she had been emailed the list of foods Tommen could not eat by Cersei Lannister-Baratheon.

"Robert and Cersei will stay in the master suite in the east wing," Catelyn Stark read the sleeping arrangements from her notepad to her husband as they lay in bed. Their day had revolved around the final preparations for the impending arrival, and making sure that the Stark children how they were to behave. Catelyn had given her strict expectations for the summer, knowing that her children needed to be spoken to individually in order for each one to understand the importance of the visit, though she still carefully guarded her tongue, even from her family. She and Ned still had not spoken about the President’s intentions for summering with them.

“Joffrey will stay in the sunset bedroom, while Tommen will go into the sunrise bedroom,” she continued.

“And Myrcella will be in the brass bedroom?” Ned asked absently, as he closed his laptop, the email to Gage having presumably been sent.

“Yes, I thought she would appreciate more than Joffrey or Tommen would.”

“And our children have the normal arrangements?”

“Yes, Theon as well,” Catelyn continued to write notes as she spoke, "and Jeyne will be staying with Sansa in her room."

“Did Sansa really need to invite Jeyne to a summer with the First Family?” Ned asked as he pulled the chain on the lamp on his bedside table.

“Jeyne Poole?” Catelyn asked, overly saccharine so her husband would understand. “A sweet girl, but not one who has ever interacted with a family like the Baratheons. Or the Lannisters, for that matter.”

“Mmmm,” Ned half-groaned as he stretched, his warm feet brushing against Cat’s cold ones.

“Sansa insisted that if she had to summer with the Baratheons, then she needed a friend,” Catelyn revealed to her husband as she set her notepad on her bedside table.

Ned was quiet, his lips pursed. “Has Sansa ever spoken to you about—”

“No.” Cat did not need him to finish, nor did she want him to. Their eldest daughter’s romantic history had never caused the family public embarrassment, although it had certainly puzzled them.

“I’ve asked her why she broke up with him, but she has always asked that I leave her romantic relationships private,” Catelyn informed her husband, her voice tight in frustration that her daughter, her beautiful Sansa, did not trust her. “She told me it had to do with applying to different colleges. You know how Sansa looks when she lies?”

Ned nodded and rolled his eyes, though Cat knew he was also grateful that their beautiful daughter was indeed such a terrible liar. They had both worried when Sansa hit puberty that they would be in trouble with her, but she proved to be the easiest of their six children.

“Thank god, I do,” Ned sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing his stubble. Cat would have to remind him to shave before the President arrived tomorrow.

“The First Lady’s brother will be joining us this summer,” Ned casually informed Cat, who felt her shoulders rise at the idea of adding another name to their guest list.

“I did not think Secret Service details could be related to their charges?” Cat puzzled.

“They can’t, but it’s not Jaime.”

“Tyrion Lannister? You cannot be serious.”

“I’m completely serious. Robert insisted he come.”

“Well, I could not believe it was the First Lady who wanted him here,” Cat retorted. “He works for Lannister Oil. What could the President possibly need him for?”

“Tyrion _was_ his campaign manager. Perhaps they need to have strategy sessions.”

“Ned, the last election was in November. Robert already won his second term.”

Ned looked at Catelyn awestruck, though his exhaustion showed clearly on his face. Cat immediately felt badly for taking out her stress on him.

“Do we have space for Tyrion?”

“Of course, we have space,” Cat replied. “He’ll have to take the suite next to the master suite.”

“The next one over, Cat,” Ned said as his eyes fluttered shut. “You and I both know that Robert and Cersei will need a second bedroom.”

“Let me get this straight,” Catelyn sighed, and it was now her turn to pinch the bridge of her nose to fight to coming headache. “The First Family is coming, for reasons that are still unclear, although you and I are both smart enough to know our suspicions are likely true. The President and First Lady will not be sharing a room, since they loathe each other, although that is a secret that few people know. The President’s eldest son will be under the same roof as our eldest daughter, with whom he shares a romantic history that you and I are for the most part in the dark about since our trusting daughter has not revealed why they ended their relationship in the first place. That same daughter will have her best friend here the entire summer because she feels that she is owed that comfort since Joffrey will be here, and she also has college friends coming in a few weeks, which is a whole other headache to plan. Last but not least, the First Lady’s brother, who has no connection to us, whose sister loathes him, or whose political necessity is a mystery. Does that sound like I have listed everything?”

Ned’s eyes twitched, as though he were trying to remember something. His silence, though, was disconcerting to Cat.

“Robb’s girlfriend will be visiting us too.”

“Ned!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and encouragement are much need for this fic. This is definitely the most ambitious thing I have ever attempted, so please don't be afraid to ask clarifying questions or anything. All of it will make me a better writer in some capacity.


	4. DAENERYS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of the point of no return for me, since publishing this chapter means that I will making this AU far bigger than I might be capable of doing at this early stage of my writing. God help me.
> 
> Also, there is a lot of exposition in this chapter, which was helpful for me in communicating the background of the Targaryens in the AU, but also I relied heavily on GRRM's first Dany POV in _A Game of Thrones_ , which itself features a great deal of exposition, but much more seamless and less clunky than my own.
> 
> Enjoy!

** **

**June 2013 - Hawaii**

“How do you like the dress?” Her brother asked her, holding the cream-colored gown up for her approval.

Dany looked at the frock, shimmering in the warm light of the sunset as she reclined in the moldy chair on the decrepit lanai. The Targaryen’s sprawling home had once been the heart of the Hawaiian politics. Now it was close to falling apart as her brother desperately tried to bring himself to relevance.

“Illyrio found it,” Viserys beamed. He was in high spirits tonight, in no doubt due to their new friend’s gift. “It was the very same one mother wore. They married on this very estate. It was called the wedding of the century when it happened. Members from all the great families came. Rockefeller, Bush, Mellon, Stark, Lannister, Baratheon, Tyrell, Martell, Kennedy. They all came. No one of note will come to your wedding.”

Dany remained quiet as her brother plodded on about all of the other families in the country who once bowed before the feet of the Targaryen political dynasty. He did this often, attempting to relive the past.

“Why does he help us?” she asked. **“What does he want from us?”*** Illyrio Mopatis had been their benefactor for almost a year, helping them pay the bills on the estate once he had heard that they had resorted to selling their mother’s jewels and wardrobe to make ends meet. Or so he claimed. Daenerys was skeptical that anyone would be so giving, least of a city councilmember. She was certain all of the local politicians had reveled in her family’s downfall.

 **“Illyrio is no fool,”*** her brother said, his lilac eyes flashing as he spoke, whether out of arrogance or anger, she did not know. Viserys wore those two emotions interchangeably. “He knows I will repay him when I bring the family back to its former glory.”

Daenerys remained silent, knowing better than to risk provoking Viserys. He often spoke of these things, of restoring the Targaryen family back to its previous heights. She could almost taste the bitterness in her own mouth whenever he spoke of his own resentment regarding their treatment by their former lessers. No one—not Baratheon, Stark, Tyrell, or even Martell—had offered Viserys the opportunity to clerk or intern for them or any one of their numerous connections after he graduated from the University of Hawaii. No one had sought to help them as their own situation grew dire. Viserys often reminded her of such things, since he held the responsibility to care for her since they were young.

She did not dare to mention that the very people responsible for their family’s downfall would never be allies to them. It seemed so obvious to her, yet Viserys’ resentment left him blind, and she did not want to raise her brother’s ire. Waking the dragon, he called it. Despite the ridiculousness of the phrase, Dany knew better than to test it.

“You should wear mother’s other dress tonight. The red one, with the lace,” Viserys instructed her, and she planned to do as she was told. It was an important night, for both of them. He spoke the next portion of his spiel in a disturbing monotone, punctuating each syllable as he made his desires clear: “You need to impress Drogo. His support is essential. We need the Dothraki. Can you deliver?”

Daenerys nodded meekly, knowing that it was not as hard of a challenge as he made it sound. Drogo needed her as much as they needed him. As a Khal of the Dothraki tribe, it was his responsibility to ensure the tribe’s survival. A marriage to the daughter of a family that produced countless Governors of Hawaii and one President of the United States would give the Dothraki the strength, or at least the appearance of strength, that they needed to survive in the 21st-century. It was increasingly difficult for indigenous tribes, across the country, to thrive when so many practices and lands were being desecrated by Lannister Oil.

“Stand up straight!” He shouted suddenly, and she felt her spine stiffen as his tone changed without warning. His hand roughly pressed against her shoulders, emphasizing that she was deficient in all manners for him. “Jorah said that it is rude to slouch in Dothraki culture. They’re savages, of course, but we cannot afford to lose their support. When the historians track my rise to power, they will know that it started tonight, when my baby sister dined with a brute and bought me the first bit of real estate in my empire.”

Viserys’ hand slowly moved from her back, caressing her shoulder blades, moving across her sides, before arriving at her left breast. Carefully, he cupped her there, and she felt her nipple go hard.

“You cannot disappoint me tonight,” Viserys reminded her calmly, though his composure was anything but comforting. His hand reached up to the front her breast and began squeezing her nipple, and he grinned devilishly as he realized it was already hard. **“You will not fail me tonight. If you do, it will go hard for you. You don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?”***

Daenerys shook her head vigorously. He had called himself “the dragon” ever since they were children, when they used to pretend that the volcano that overlooked their family’s manse would erupt one day, birthing a dragon into the world. Such were the stories that their mother fed them, and it nourished them, for a time; ever since their parents’ deaths, it had become poison for Viserys. Every time he mentioned the word dragon to her, she worried that he was approaching a breakdown more and more. But she would never dare to verbalize these thoughts.

“You should bathe,” he said, letting go of her suddenly, and she felt air rush into her lungs at the freedom of his release. “Before you meet him, you should be _thoroughly_ clean.”

Dany did not need to ask him from what.

She nodded at him, averting her eyes, not wanting to displeasure him in anyway. She felt humiliated, and small, at the fact that she was twenty-eight and still afraid of her older brother. She moved past him, slowly, hoping that her careful movements would not provoke him into grabbing her again. He did not reach for her, but the tension remained her shoulders and she knew her posture was not what he desired, despite his earlier admonishment that she stand tall.

She was relieved when she cleared the room without a further word from her brother, and she felt herself begin breathing normally again. She made her way to the stairs and fought every instinct to charge up them and lock herself in the bathroom. She knew better than to risk her brother hearing her hurried movements. He did not like when she revealed her worry or stress with stomping. With the bathroom door in her sights, she found herself tiptoeing, so as to prevent Viserys from guessing where she was going, or which bathroom she was using. But finally, she reached the bathroom door, and as quietly as she could, locked the door behind her.

Moments later, Daenerys lowered herself into the bear-claw bathtub. Viserys told her was specifically chosen by their ancestors Daeron Targaryen II and his wife Mariah when he built the mansion in a fusion of Hawaiian Gothic and Renaissance styles during the family’s migration from New York to Hawaii, back in the 1830s. She thought back on the past, on the previous thirty years which had made her brother who he was today. She supposed those same years made her who she was too, but she did not want to think too long on her own experiences. Where her brother saw evidence of slights against the family, Daenerys saw evidence of something else entirely.

Daenerys had never been to the mainland United States. She remained on the islands at her brother’s request, since he felt so insulted when none of the political powerhouse families even attempted to hire him after he graduated from the William S. Richardson School of Law. Yet he always spoke of returning to the mainland, of gaining enough power to reclaim the glory once bestowed upon Targaryens ever since their ancestors had emigrated from the Netherlands, Sweden, and Scotland during the 17th-century.

As a child, Dany loved learning about her family history from their mother. She had always wanted to know more about Rhaenyra and Aegon Targaryen II, the siblings who nearly destroyed the family’s plantation empire after their father died. She enjoyed hearing about the quirks of the three cousins who moved the family to Hawaii in the 1830s: Baelor, the missionary who sought to convert the native population, and Daeron, the businessman who sought to use the family’s fortune to buy pineapple and coffee plantations tended to by the locals, and then Aegon Targaryen IV, a man who threw such elaborate parties in colonial Hawaii, had numerous mistresses, and countless illegitimate children that he was nicknamed Caligula by his peers. Thirteen generations of Targaryens came before her and her brother, and now they were all that was left of the once great family.

At first, it was her mother who told her all of the stories, since her father could not be bothered with something so trivial as childrearing. But once her mother committed suicide, her brother bore the weight of telling the stories. Of course, all of the papers said it was a heart attack that took Rhaella Targaryen away from them. That was what her brother told them. Viserys knew better than to release such sensitive information as the truth to the public and quickly bought off the coroner and the police, following the advice of their family friend Willem Darry. Dany had been just a toddler when Rhaegar and his family died, and a girl when her father perished, but when her mother died and she was left with only Viserys, that girl was gone.

She scrubbed her skin, watching the suds slide down her wrists, thighs, and breasts as she cleansed each part that she needed to. _Drogo is wealthy, he is respected, he could be different_. She needed different after such a long time on her own.

She still could not understand why her brother would be so willing to arrange a date with a Dothraki tribesman. She had always heard from her mother and from Viserys that she would be with someone important, someone worthy of her rank as the only daughter of Aerys Targaryen II. She was American royalty, a descendent of some of the first settlers in this country, the daughter of a President. Yet here she was, locking herself into one of the only places that she felt safe while her brother used her as a pawn to plot his rise to power. Here Viserys was, planning to arrange her to be with someone whom she had been taught to see as less than her and whom he surely thought of as inferior to them, the last Targaryens.

She was still unclear if Viserys intended for her to marry Drogo, and she supposed it unlikely considering his own sentiments towards native Hawaiian Islanders. Viserys rarely spoke well of the tribal peoples, and besides, Viserys wanted her for more than just arranging a courtship. The last daughter of the Targaryens must some importance in to the future of the family.

Daenerys dressed herself, carefully buttoning the side of the red lace dress that Viserys had told her to wear. She would not wear jewelry tonight, since all of the family’s jewelry had already been sold, but she knew enough of make-up application to make herself look desirable. She had received compliments for her beauty all of her life, and Viserys even told her she looked nice from time to time. She could make herself appeal to Drogo, but she also knew that she would need to be away from Viserys in order to succeed. Where Viserys thought she was always the weak link, she could not count on her brother to not make a fool of himself or her while she was tasked with seducing the tribal chief.

She heard a knock on her bedroom door as she applied blue eyeliner, to complement her purple eyes. She was silent as she waited for Viserys to announce his purpose.

“What is taking so long, Daenerys?” Viserys said, and though his voice was calm—friendly, even—his word choice told Daenerys to finish. “Illyrio arrived half an hour ago. He has been waiting. With Drogo.”

His punctuated revelation prompted goosebumps to cover her body as a shiver went up her spine. She had gone on dates before, all of them arranged by her brother, but this one felt different. She knew there was a different expectation with Drogo.

Looking herself over in the mirror one last time before she presented herself, Dany felt inadequate for the task before her in every way. She too had gone to the University of Hawaii at Manoa, had earned a degree in sociology and minored in political science, had sought to restore the family to its former heights. This was the first step in that goal or the final chapter in their saga. It had all fallen to her, even though it was Viserys’ brainchild. For the first time, she felt the crushing weight of what it meant to be a Targaryen.

All of her worries were absent from her face when she presented herself to Illyrio and Drogo, seated on the faded furniture bought generations ago by a family member she could not recall at the moment. She had dried her hands before she left her room to hide the fact that her palms had been sweating in anticipation of this introduction.

“Daenerys, you look regal in the dress,” Illyrio bellowed genially from the couch, the portly man not bothering to stand to greet her. The khal was different. He stood up to greet her and bowed his head, as is the custom of the Dothraki, or so Jorah Mormont had told her brother. At once Daenerys was taken aback at his appearance. His dark skin made him look regal, though his face reflected the harshness of indigenous life in Hawaii. Despite the fear that she imagined his appearance could induce in the weakest of men, Dany could not help but be intrigued by the man. His height and muscle made him look lethal, yet were at odds with the length of his braided black hair that reached his waist. She was unused to seeing men with long hair so clearly as strong as this man before her. She felt goosebumps again, though whether the cause was fear or something else, or perhaps a range of things, was unknown to her. All she was certain of was the magnetic pull of this man, and she was immediately afraid of this unfamiliar feeling, one that told her to run away from Viserys and all she knew. But before she had any time to react further, she felt Viserys’ cruel hand on the small of her back pinch her flesh and she instinctively smiled and stood up straight in order to please her brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *quoted from Daenerys I of _A Game of Thrones_ by George R.R. Martin.
> 
> Just to give some background on how I am translating this series to this particular AU, I am envisioning the Dothraki as Native Hawaiian Islanders in order to correspond to Viserys and Daenerys beginning the series across the sea from where the main political intrigue is. I am researching aspects of Hawaiian and Polynesian culture and ethnicities in the modern world in order to pay due diligence and proper respect to those cultures. Most of the information that I found about Native Hawaiians in 21st-century Hawaii in from 2010, so it may be outdated but it was the most trustworthy information that I found. If you know differently about any of the information that I provided, then please let me know so I can adjust the storyline. Furthermore, if you feel that I misportray anything or grossly misrepresent indigenous culture in this fic, please please please let me know. It is not my intention to perpetuate stereotypes or be disrespectful to any culture or ethnicity.
> 
> That being said, any racism portrayed in this fic are the views of the characters, and not myself. If a character says something that is incredibly disrespectful or politically incorrect, that is meant to be characterization not a reflection of my own views.


	5. EDDARD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so this is twice as long as any of my other chapters. I am making a concerted effort to make my chapters even lengths, but there was just so much to cover in this chapter to set the stage for the rest of the plot. I mean, as of this chapter, we're five chapters in and I had to get the plot rolling with a full(ish) cast of characters.
> 
> I also finally got back on track doing the collages. I have two others made for the previous two chapters, but I'm having some Internet issues tonight, so it may take some time before those are updated (I'm hoping to solve my Internet issues by tomorrow).

**June 2013 – The Hamptons**

The visitors invaded the driveway of the Stark family’s Hamptons estate in a mess of black coats and suits, shining guns, fancy limousines carrying the First Family and the essential Secret Service agents to keep the security of the free world safe during the summer season, and the seal of the President of the United States waving over everyone as a summer sea breeze arrived.

Ned had known or at least recognized most of the personnel. Being a Governor of an key electoral state had its benefits, as was being the President’s prep school friend. Jaime Lannister had exited the limousines first, his bright golden-head and chiseled jaw making him identifiable despite the obscuring aviator sunglasses adorning his face. Ned rolled his eyes when he saw the man, immediately deducing that the First Lady had pulled strings that were never meant to be pulled to have her brother assigned to President’s security during the summer; Jaime Lannister had been the head of Jon Arryn’s security detail, and by all accounts been quite good at it, but Ned did not trust the man, had not since the impeachment of Aerys Targaryen back in ‘91.

Sandor Clegane was the next one to appear, his terrible scars making him recognizable from one hundred yards. Shortly after their protectors had exited the vehicles, the President, the First Lady, and Joffrey appeared from behind the doors, followed by the goldenheads of Myrcella and Tommen. Ned spotted Renly Baratheon stepping out of a vehicle, and was surprised how much the man had matured since he last saw him. Renly had shocked everyone when he won the Governor’s race in Florida following Robert Baratheon’s victory on November 4th, 2008. More than ever, Renly look almost presidential in the way he had grown up in the past ten years, as it must have been ten years since Ned had last seen him.

More guards had appeared and wear scanning the premises, despite the fact that a group of agents had arrived a week before to check the house for bugs or weak vantage points.

The Starks had bought the land and built the house over a hundred years ago, when the Gilded Age was in full swing and owning multiple houses meant having more power than any President, so he supposed that the need to assure the Secret Service that the property was safe made sense considering that the house was built in a time before long distance rifles and heads of state feared fatal assassination as much as they feared a character one. Ned liked to believe that the way of the world had changed enough that no family had more power than the President of the United States, and that wealth meant little more than a few privileges here there—education, prime real estate, and societal connections that meant billions annually in business. Yet the Starks were still one of the wealthiest families in the country and a name that rivaled the Rockefellers and the Kennedys, and the Baratheons of the Florida real estate game had a son in the White House and two more in the legislature. Power rarely changed hands, as much as he wished he could deny it. Seeing the Lannisters, with their billions in oil, united with his friend was hard enough to watch, but acknowledging that the families that established themselves decades or centuries ago had all the power pained him.

The President approached him, and Ned had to remind himself that he needed to follow state procedure with both the First Lady and the Secret Service present. He only greeted, “Mr. President, welcome back to Summerfalls.”

Ned had long ago learned to bite back the bile at the pun the Stark summer house had on the Stark’s winter abode upstate. With the brownstone in Tribeca and penthouse on Park Avenue, he knew the family was over-housed compared to its size, but he also knew that he would never be able to rid himself of the properties when the properties were tied up in generations of family history that could never be valued with money.

“Ned,” the president nodded as he genially hugged his longtime friend—perhaps his only remaining friend now that Jon Arryn had died.

The First Lady appeared beside her husband, and Ned nodded at her and held out his hand, “Mrs. Baratheon.”

“Governor,” the First Lady’s perfunctory response felt as empty as she intended, Ned was sure, but a shred of doubt held fast in the back of his mind. He had never been able to read that woman, ever since he had met her over twenty years ago. Even at Lyanna’s funeral, which Cersei had attended begrudgingly, he struggled with knowing what was going in her head. The woman was as cold as ice, and as revelatory as ice too.

“Enough with these pointless pleasantries, Ned,” Robert's persona took over the countenance of the most powerful man in the world, and the President ceased to exist as the young boy who never wanted to grow up took over. “Let’s enjoy this afternoon, _properly_.”

Ned did not need his old friend to elaborate, as a proper afternoon for Robert Baratheon had meant enjoying a whiskey—or several—on the rocks outside ever since he had been a teenager at prep school. Whenever Robert had come to Summerfalls to summer with the Starks, he had always snuck a bottle of Knob Creek or Jim Beam from Rickard Stark’s ample stores in the liquor cellar, abundant with select bottles of wine, whiskey, rum, and gin. Where Ned faced far more consequences from Rickard and Lyarra Stark than Robert ever faced from Steffon and Cassana Baratheon, his friend had always thought himself invincible, without consequence, until he met Professor Arryn.

While Ned led Robert to the study, once in the room Robert knew exactly where to find the liquor.

“I hope you don’t mind drinking it neat,” Robert said, a smile on his face. The prospect of drinking often made his friend happy, Ned admitted to himself.

“On the rocks,” Ned requested. “There’s ice in the fridge behind the mini-bar.”

His friend laughed. “Did you stock up for my arrival, then?”

“I had to,” Ned confessed, a serious look taking form on his face. “I’ll need plenty of scotch on the rocks while you’re here.”

Robert’s bellow filled the study, and Ned knew that despite all the finery that the office of the President of the United States bestowed on its inhabitants, Robert was still the hellion he had met at boarding school in the ‘70s. It comforted him some that the highest office in the country could not corrupt his friend.

“I remember the first time I came here,” Robert’s eyes turned glossy as he spoke. Walking down memory lane often did this to him, especially when it concerned the visits he made as young man. “You invited me here for Thanksgiving, and you parents were surprisingly happy to have me. You and I both know the same hospitality would not be given had you visited the Keys with me.”

Ned laughed, but braced himself nonetheless for what he knew was to come.

“I vividly remember the first time I saw her.” _There it is._ “It’s strange, Ned. I can remember the moment, but I can’t always remember her face. God, I will never forgive Rhaegar Targaryen for being so stupid.”

Ned understood the anger. The stages of grief had plagued him as well. The accident that took Lyanna and the last of the Targaryens had taken the little joy that remained after his first wife’s suicide. Though Cat had rarely spoken of the change in his demeanor, he knew that it happened, that it caused some barriers in his marriage. He had made mistakes after all of the deaths: Ashara, Brandon, and Lyanna. Though nothing would compare to the egregious mistake he made at Brandon’s funeral, one he had never dared tell even his best friend.

“I imagine killing him in my dreams,” Robert confessed, an unmistakable look of grief painted his expression as he clutched his whiskey. “ **A thousand deaths will still be less than he deserves.** ”

“ **We should return** , Mr. President. **Your wife will be waiting**.”

“The Devil **take my wife,” Robert muttered sourly**. “And if I hear ‘Mr. President’ one more time, **I’ll have your head**. **We are more to each other than that.”***

“Then need I remind you that you were married when she died.”

“I had not forgotten, Ned,” Robert sounded bitter, as he often did when reminded of Cersei. He raised his glass to Ned with a wry smile forming on his face. “The Devil take my wife.”

“What happened to Jon?”

Robert shrugged in a most unpresidential fashion. “Last I saw him, he was in the same health he had always been. I’d always thought the old man was in better shape than me.”

“Well, you _have_ gotten fat,” Ned said before lifting his own glass to his mouth. Robert’s baritone laugh filled the study once again, and Ned was once more grateful that his friend seemed so incorruptible.

“It’s been a month since he died. I miss that man.”

“You’re not alone in that,” Ned attempted to comfort his friend.

“How’s Lysa doing?” Robert asked, not making eye contact with Ned. Lysa Tully Arryn was often someone with whom neither of them wanted to deal.

“Catelyn is worried about her,” Ned admitted. “She’s returned to his ranch in Colorado with Robin. She has made herself scarce with the Tullys, that is for certain. Cat says her brother is concerned about her, as well.”

“How is Edmure?”

“He’s hoping to run for Governor in the next few years. What do you think his chances are?”

“A moderate of an established and revered family being elected in Mississippi? You know what his chances are.”

“I suspected, but you would be far more attuned to the goings on in Mississippi than I would be. Running New York doesn’t afford me the time to check in on the other states in the union.”

“Your wife doesn’t update you on her homeland?” Robert asked, his eyebrow raised.

Ned laughed at that. Despite feeling like an outsider among the New York families for most of their marriage, she was far more a New Yorker than southern belle now. She rarely spoke to Edmure, and when she did, it was usually to scold him. Ned also suspected that she did not like her sister-in-law, Roslin, but they rarely discussed such matters.

“Does the First Lady update you on California?”

“I don’t need Cersei to update me when I have the leader of the Environmental Protection Agency sitting on my cabinet,” Robert lamented. The discussion of politics always seemed to bring him undue stress. “The country is falling apart. California is on fire and sliding all over. The west is becoming dryer by the year. Summer in the southeast gets more and more wet, either from hurricanes or humidity. The winters in your neck of the woods are getting harsher. And I haven’t even begun listing the problems with the economy, the wars in the Middle East, or the fact that our allies resent us for spying on them.”

Robert’s face was red now.

“You know why I’m here, Ned, don’t you?”

 _And here it is,_ the moment Ned had been waiting for since Robert invited himself to the Starks summer home. Ned paused briefly to finish his drink before nodding. “I suspected.”

The two men were silent as Robert sloshed the liquor in his glass.

“Do you need me to beg?” Robert asked, though whether it was to lighten the mood, to express his anger or annoyance or fear, Ned did not know.

“No, but I need you to ask it of me, and I would rather you wait before you do. If this is the last summer my family experiences normalcy, I only ask that you allow us to have it before any formal proposals are made.”

Robert pursed his lips suddenly, a very un-Baratheon thing for him to do, but he nodded his acquiescence to Ned’s request. “If you need time before you give me an answer, then I can give it.”

Ned nodded once more. “Thank you.”

It felt odd to be discussing such a drastic matter without actually mentioning it, but Ned had long suspected that this was how they handled things in Washington. Directness was not considered politic among the players in the capitol. That fact was one of the primary reasons Ned had decided against running for a senate seat. It looked as though that decision was moot.

“I’m a better man when you’re by my side, Ned. Had I not fucked things up with Lyanna when we were young, we might be brothers now. It can't believe that my Joff and your Sansa did not work out. They would have been a good match, uniting Baratheon and Stark.”

Ned felt something alert inside of him, understanding or the first time what having the Baratheons here this summer would do, could do to his family. Having Joff near Sansa, Cersei near Catelyn, Myrcella near Robb—he loved Robert like a brother, but he did not see it necessary to unite their families in marriage. Sansa was not the girl she had been before she dated Joffrey, and Ned knew it was not just that she had grown up in the meantime. Cersei always knew how to get under Cat’s skin, and Ned’s too, for that matter. Myrcella was harmless, as was Tommen, with neither one of them inheriting a Lannister penchant for ruthlessness, but Robb needed to be his own man, and any connection with a Lannister was a threat to that, Ned knew. Even Robert Baratheon had proven to be rendered impotent by Cersei or anyone of her Lannister family members. Incorruptible from politics, true, but Robert's wife was another story.

Even in the study of his forebears, where his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather among countless other Starks had sat and made decisions that affected the entire family, Ned felt out of his depth as he pondered what he would do once Robert actually asked the question that he had intended to ask ever since he invited himself to Summerfalls. Accepting meant the Starks would reach the same level as the Rockefellers, having a member of the family in such a high office. Not that the Starks needed the prestige, having been among the first settlers in the northeast when the country was founded. Starks had served in every major war and conflict in American history, and their impact on the country was undeniable, as Stark Enterprises had fueled the growth of the Industrial Revolution and the booms of the ‘20s and ‘50s. Yet now, after three-hundred years of security, Ned felt for the first time as though either decision he could make would destroy the family.

“Alright,” Robert declared, before finishing his drink. “Let’s return to our blasted families.”

Both men stood up, setting their glasses down, knowing that a servant will clean them up later. Had Robert not been the President and had he been one of his children, Ned would have demanded that they both clean up after themselves, to follow through on their responsibility to maintain the Stark family home and decency. But he reminded himself that Robert Baratheon was not one of his children, and it was a comforting thought.

“What’s on the menu tonight?” Robert asked jovially, ready to move on to the next thing since unloading his stresses a few moments before.

“It’s a few courses,” Ned began, having been briefed on the plans the night before by Cat. “A Caesar salad with fried squid, caught just this morning; then a lemon and spinach soup with orzo; the main course is honey-roasted chicken spit-roasted over the fire pit in the yard, with a small crabcake on the side; then coffee before dessert."

"Which is?" Robert pushed. Even in his younger years, Robert had loved food, but he had been enough of a high school athlete that the amount he ate prevented him from gaining any weight.

"Which is berries with sweet cream, but no strawberries.”

“No, Cersei would tear your heart right out,” Robert deadpanned. Strawberries were one of Tommen’s allergies. “But it is a mighty sounding meal, for sure, Ned.”

Even Ned had felt his mouth water as Catelyn listed all of the courses the night before.

“Catelyn has put a lot of work into planning the meals for the week. She made sure that nothing that harmed Tommen would make an appearance.”

Robert had warned him before their arrival that even the appearance of an allergen on the table would be enough to send Cersei over the edge. Rickon himself had a peanut allergy, though not severe by any means. Ingestion had proven to be the biggest threat to his youngest child, but Jon and Arya had always found peanut butter to be a comfort food, so Rickon had learned to avoid eating or touching it. A jar of peanut butter had always been in the Stark family pantry, but Rickon knew not to touch it. Ned could not understand how Cersei and Robert had neglected to teach their children the same thing. The world was not always accommodating to special needs, though Ned suspected that he knew this more acutely than either Robert or Cersei considering the challenges of raising Rickon.

The men approached the outdoor dining area, one of the twentieth-century structures at Summerfalls, but it remained where Ned’s children preferred to eat when the weather permitted, so it was their traditional dinner table. There was the traditional bustle and murmur that accompanied a Stark family meal, but the added chaos of the Baratheons and the Lannisters made Ned’s heartbeat quicken.

The elongated table in the outdoor dining area could seat eighteen if the need arose. The area, located on the patio covered with oak beams, which themselves were covered with well-tended grapevines, was not unlike a bay or peninsula in that three walls with three doors circled the majority of the area while no fourth wall existed, allowing diners to view the sprawling estate laid out in the rear of the home, and beyond the estate was a tranquil private beach and an unhindered view of the ocean. The space was parallel to the indoor dining area, with French doors that opened into the equally large dining space inside the home. Another door led to the beautiful French kitchen that Catelyn had redesigned shortly after Robb was born. The other door led to the reading room, which Ned had formerly called a library until the children had insisted that it was far too comfortable to be referred to as such.

It had always been that the two highest-ranking patriarchs sat on each end of the table. Ned would sit on one end while Robert would reign on the other. Cersei would be rankled, Ned was certain, but the arrangements would remain the same regardless. Cersei and Cat would sit to the right of their husbands and each end would be surrounded by children, in whatever order they chose. Tyrion and Jaime Lannister had been invited to dine with them, and they would bridge the gap between the Baratheon and Stark ends of the table, along with Jeyne Poole, Theon Greyjoy, and Renly Baratheon, who had unexpectedly joined the First Family in past few days.

Glancing around the room, he saw four secret service agents posted around the room, and the unmistakable presence of Sandor Clegane weighed on Ned. The tall, scarred man was often silent, and there were times Ned felt that his eyes were almost mocking those whom he served. Others called the man the Hound for a reason, though just what reason, Ned was still unclear. Clegane had been elite forces in England, being a Scottish national, but the man had a skillset that made him especially good at his job. When environmental terrorists had made an attack against the oldest son of the President not two years ago, Clegane had deftly handled and definitively ended the situation in a matter of hours. Ned was not scared of the guard, but he did not know what to think of him.

Robert and Ned took their seats at the respective heads of the table. Ned was pleased to see that the table was set, and he suspected that Sansa and Robb were the primary movers in this instance. They often favored their mother’s propriety, more so than the other Stark children. While Catelyn sat to his right, Sansa seated herself next to her mother, while Jeyne Poole, who had arrived two days before, sat on the other side. Ned suspected Sansa was looking to flank herself with friendly faces. There was once a time when Sansa would have been the only Stark sitting next to the Lannister-Baratheon family.

His wife smiled at him, and Ned felt himself calm somewhat, but he knew he would not be calm as long as Cersei Lannister was in his home.

“So Jon,” Ned heard Robert’s voice boom across the table, sufficiently silencing all in attendance. Though Robert had expressed to Ned his desire that the summer be as informal as possible, the voice of the President of the United States would most likely always quiet a room. “Your father tells me that your leaving the homestead once more.”

“Yes, sir,” Jon answered, never forgetting his rank and courtesies. He was a soldier after all, just like Ned and Robb were, just like the President was as well.

“And what are you doing in New York once you move there?” Ned had told Robert about Jon’s career plans, but Robert was never one to ignore proper dinner conversation. Though hedonistic might not be the word that best described the man, Robert Baratheon certainly enjoyed leisure, and engaging dinner conversation was just that.

“The New York PD, sir,” Jon said, a bit sullenly, but Ned did not miss the pride in his eyes. Catelyn stood up at this moment to go to the kitchen. Ned suspected that she would not do the same thing if Robb were speaking.

“A soldier never stops, does he?” Robert said, a gleam in his eye.

“No, he doesn’t, sir,” Jon cracked a smile this time.

“Is Benjen still on the force?” Renly asked.

“He is,” Jon continued. “He made captain a few years ago.”

“Ah, nepotism,” Jaime Lannister interjected with a cocky grin.

“As a Lannister, my brother knows all about nepotism, you see,” Tyrion joined the conversation. The flippant nature of the Lannister brothers did not sit well with Ned, though he had always been curious why Cersei was so serious while Jaime and Tyrion were so glib. "Some might even call him an expert."

“Anyone care for some wine?” Catelyn offered as she reentered the dining area from the kitchen, a bottle of Riesling and a bottle of Syrah in each hand.

“Always,” Tyrion answered.

Starting with the youngest of the Lannister siblings, Catelyn began circle around the table, filling the wine cups with whichever one they wanted. Tyrion selected the red, as did Jaime and Robert, but Cersei requested the Riesling. Catelyn asked Cersei and Robert if the children were permitted to drink.

Cersei began, “Myr—”

“Of course I am,” Joffrey said. “I’m an adult and the son of the President, besides.”

Ned saw Sansa’s eyes turn up and glance to the corner of the room. Without moving his head, Ned’s eyes found Sandor Clegane, who was looking back at Sansa. Before long, Clegane’s eyes met Ned’s, and the scarred man averted his from the scene altogether.

“As the son of the President who is of age to drink, do you think our lovely hostess was asking permission for you?” one of the Lannister brothers said, but Ned was unsure which one as he had been watching Clegane.

Cersei continued as if nothing had transpired to embarrass her, “Myrcella is free to have a glass, but only one. Tommen must wait until he is eighteen.”

“I would like a small glass of Riesling, Mrs. Stark,” Myrcella asked. Not for the first time was Ned intrigued that the same words out Cersei’s mouth only moments before had sounded far less sweet and far more venomous than Myrcella’s just did. Ned did not miss Myrcella’s passing glance at Robb as she reached for her wine glass to take a sip. Catelyn continued to pouring the wine, although much more quietly than before, and Ned suspected that she did not want to start another scene like what had just occurred with Joffrey. It made Ned cringe to think of Joffrey behaving in such a way, or worse, with his daughter.

“Sansa, sweet, how are you?” Cersei’s voice was asking the question this time, and though her tone was sweet and gentle, hairs rose on Ned’s arm. It seemed like the same feeling came over Clegane as the Hound’s attention returned to the dinner scene before him.

“I am well, Mrs. Baratheon,” Sansa said before reaching for some water. Catelyn had not yet reached Sansa’s wine glass, and Ned hoped that she did not wish to wash away discomfort with wine.

“How is Harvard?” Ned could have sworn that he smelled poison through the kind questions. “Don’t they have a saying...that there is always a Stark at Harvard?”

Cersei had a habit of mocking the Starks’ reputation whenever there were holiday gatherings between the Baratheons and the Starks.

“They do say that, Mrs. Baratheon,” added Robb, “ _at_ Harvard.”

Ned felt a surge of pride as his son hurried to protect his younger sister.

“I will actually be going to London for the year to study abroad,” Sansa added, and though she did not sound meek, she did sound as though she were trying to make herself small.

“London?” The First Lady smiled sweetly. “How pleasant. I would think you would prefer Paris or Rome. Some European city filled with romance and legend.”

“Glasgow, perhaps?” Jeyne Poole piped up before taking a sip of her water. Jeyne’s body jumped slightly, and Ned thought he had heard a shuffle under the table. Jeyne coughed slightly as though the water went down wrong, and patted her lip with her napkin. Theon smirked at her, and whispered something in her ear that made the girl blush.

“I’m actually going to Oxford for the year,” Sansa said more resolutely than she had been moments before.

“She worked very hard to be accepted,” Robb added. “They only accept a certain amount of students each year. I didn't get in when I applied.”

“Oxford?” Cersei said. Her tone remained a saccharine as before, but something waivered in her now.

“Oxford is a remarkable accomplishment, Sansa,” Tyrion stated, clearly impressed with her achievement.

“Not as great as Harvard, but I have a bit of a bias for American universities,” Robert added with mirth.

“Joffrey was just elected President of the Class of 2015,” Cersei stated almost aggressively.

Silence followed the announcement, and even young Tommen looked uncomfortable at what was unfolding before him.

“Yes, my girlfriend ran my campaign for me,” Joffrey began to gloat. His words were polished, and his accent was undoubtedly an upper-class received pronunciation. He annoyed Ned. He had annoyed Ned when he dated Sansa, and he still did so now. “She is a Tyrell, from Kentucky.”

“A Tyrell?” Cat said, trying to sound impressed. She might fool Joffrey, but she could not fool her husband: she did not care, but it was in her nature to appease her guests. She might be more New Yorker than southern belle, as he had declared to himself earlier, but she still acted the southern belle whenever she was asked to host guests. It was part of what made her such an asset in his business and political careers. Ned would never have gotten as far as he did with Catelyn, not even with the surname Stark. He was only as good as his partner. _She’s a hell of a partner_ , Ned thought proudly.

“A bit unusual for Tyrell to be attending university in California, isn’t it?” Bran asked.

“Unusual, yes,” Joffrey began to answer, arrogance dripping from every syllable he spoke. “Most of her siblings went to Vanderbilt.”

Joffrey stopped explaining. Quiet swept over the table once more, and Ned could not fathom why Joffrey though he had completed his response. _Perhaps he does not believe that he needs to answer Bran_.

“Margaery’s mother is a Vanderbilt on her mother’s side,” Renly Baratheon offered.

“And who’s Margaery?” Arya asked, sounding annoyed.

“Margaery is my girlfriend,” Joffrey said, a bit taken aback by Arya’s inability to make the connection.

“Oh,” Arya said drily. “You didn’t say her first name.”

Catelyn returned to her seat next to Ned, having filled all of the wine glasses that needed to be filled. The servants started serving them at this point, delivering small Caesar salads to the table.

“So, Myrcella,” Catelyn began, expertly diverting attention to a happier focus, “I know you just graduated from high school. Have you given any thought to what you will do next?”

“Yes,” Myrcella nodded pleasantly, a smile forming on her face, “I’ve already submitted all the paperwork to attend Columbia in the fall.”

“Myrcella is thinking of studying business,” Cersei said, pride in her eyes and voice as she beheld her only daughter. “She may one day take over Lannister Oil, since my brothers seem to have directly their attention elsewhere.”

“Protecting our country’s leaders is not the downtrodden path you seem to think it is, sweet sister,” Tyrion said in defense of his brother.

“And Tyrion has perhaps elevated the family name by running the winning presidential campaign in not one, but two elections,” Jaime said dully, as though bored by the discussion, though his phrasing communicated anything but that.

Ned felt a pang of sympathy for the Lannister brothers, recognizing their desire to protect one another. It was not so different from how Robb had sought to protect Sansa earlier in the conversation.

“Do you want to study business?” Rickon asked, speaking up for the first time during the meal. Catelyn reached for Ned’s hand as soon as she heard Rickon’s voice. He had been a most difficult child so far. Thirteen years, and they still had not figured out how to discipline him. They had raised five good children before Rickon, yet he was the Gordian Knot of the Stark family.

Myrcella faltered for a moment, looking like a deer in the headlights at being asked such a question.

“I—”

“Of course she wants to take up the family tradition, dear Rickon,” Cersei argued gently. “It would be no different from your brother Robb working at Stark Enterprises.”

“Now that you are no longer active duty, do you plan to join the family business?” Renly asked calmly, taking a forkful of the salad after he spoke.

“Actually, I will be joining the company this summer,” said Robb. Ned was surprised that his son chose to share this information now. Robb had always expressed nervousness about appearing as though he benefitted from nepotism. Ned shot a warning glare at Jaime to avoid a repeat of his comment from earlier.

“That _is_ a bit odd,” Cersei stated. “I know I just used you as an example, but is the plan for you to take over the business while the oldest Stark brother mans the streets of the city?”

Cersei was walking in dangerous territory, but no one at that table had the ability to remind her of this, except one, and Ned did not think he would act.

“My sweet sister, perhaps we can continue discussing things in a way that does not alienate the people who will be housing us for the summer, hmm?” _Perhaps there is another_. Once again, Ned was not sure which Lannister brother spoke since he was too busy watching Robert, whose face communicated that he was far too gone—off imagining other things, remembering other visits to Summerfalls—to care about this discussion.

The servants quietly reentered the area to take away the salad bowls and replace them with lemon and spinach soup with orzo. The smell teased Ned’s taste buds. He glanced at his redheaded daughter to gauge her reaction to the food, and by the expression on her face, Ned could tell she was pleased. This had always been Sansa’s favorite soup growing up. She has always had a fondness for lemons.

“So, Arya,” Renly said, grabbing the appropriate spoon to begin feasting on the delectable soup, “I hear you have some exciting plans for the immediate future.”

“Yes, I do,” Arya said shortly, not wanting the attention to be on her. It had always pleased Ned that even though his children sought praise from their parents, they did not scream for attention from elsewhere. It made him feel as though he had raised his daughters well.

“And what are those plans, Miss Arya, or do you mean to keep us on the edge of our seats?” Ned could not tell if Tyrion’s sarcasm was meant to mock or prompt Arya to speak. Humor had never been his strong point. It had surprised that he had even managed to win Cat over, when he was so unlike his brother Brandon.

“I decided to join the Marines,” Arya revealed to the dinner guests. “I’m going to South Carolina at the end of the summer to begin basic training.”

“You were accepted in the Marine Corps?” Cersei clarified. Surprise filled her voice, which did not happen often.

Arya nodded sheepishly. Ned knew such a discussion about a woman entering the Marines was perhaps not the best discussion to have a table full of Republicans. Regardless, he was proud of his daughter.

“That’s awfully impressive, Arya,” Jaime said. “I was Marine myself back in my younger years. Served in Kuwait in the 1990s. And Bosnia. And Somalia.”

“Not in that order,” Tyrion added drily.

“We weren’t at war with any of those countries,” Rickon said, confusion painting his face.

“No, indeed we were not,” Jaime said, pursing his lips. The blond man glanced at Ned, his stare blank. Ned could not read him in the slightest, though he supposed it likely Jaime was checking to see if Ned was judging him. Jaime often appeared careless, but he also seemed like he was concerned that Ned in particular was judging him. Jaime did become famous after earning a dishonorable discharge that was later overturned when he disobeyed a direct order from the Commander-in-Chief during his service in Kuwait.

“War is never a fun topic to discuss at the dinner table,” Renly announced. He began pointing at his bowl of soup with his spoon. “This soup is fantastic.”

“I’m glad you enjoy it, Renly,” Cat smiled. “It is actually a deceptively simple recipe. It has been one of Sansa’s favorites since she was a girl.”

“You do like lemons an awful lot, Sansa,” Myrcella said softly. “You were always so excited when we served pineapple-lemon cakes at our house.”

Once again, the demeanors around the table shift to discomfort with the reference to the copious amount of time Sansa spent with the Baratheons when she was dating Joffrey. It bothered Ned that Sansa had never fully explained why their relationship ended, at least not truthfully. He did not believe that her claim they would attend universities on opposite sides of the country would suffice.

Interrupting the awkwardness of meal, one of the servers exited the kitchen, a platter with the beautifully displayed honey-roasted whole chicken surrounded by apples. The meat smelled heavenly to Ned. The chicken had come from a local farmer whom Ned had patroned since the 1980s. The farmer had always sold Ned the juiciest poultry imaginable, and Ned had not doubt this chicken would be any different based on the bird's aroma.

The server place the platter in front of the President, and Robert perked up once meat was placed in front of him. Grabbing the carving utensils from the platter, Robert began to make quick work of the chicken. The rest of wait staff delivered the dinner plates, with a small crabcake waiting on each plate.

“What about you, Bran?” Robert’s voice was heard, filling the space once again with his presidential echo. “Will we make a soldier out of you?”

“Not unless you want him devising the strategies,” Jon said, a slight smile on his face. While it was likely a jest at Bran’s scholarship, Jon was not entirely wrong about Bran offering something to the military in some capacity. Sometimes it frightened Ned when he thought about what Bran was truly capable of with that remarkable brain of his.

“Bran graduated from high school early,” Sansa said, smiling at her younger brother as she did. “He’s already been accepted into MIT. Next year, we hope to find an apartment in Boston together.”

Sansa was nearly bouncing in her seat now. Of all the siblings, Bran had been the closest to Sansa growing up. It would be good for the both of them to be in Boston for a couple of years.

“MIT?” Tyrion said. “What do you plan to study?”

“Theoretical physics,” Bran answered confidently, pushing his black-rimmed glasses up to the bridge of his nose.

Tyrion nearly choked on his wine in response.

“Christ, he could be making the weapons in a few years, not just strategizing,” Tyrion said.

“Theoretical physics isn’t always about making weapons,” Bran said, “unless the weapons themselves are theoretical and therefore have not been invented.”

“Then what exactly will you be expert after graduating from MIT with a degree in theoretical physics?” Tyrion asked, genuinely puzzled by the subject of Bran’s choosing.

“Using mathematical models and abstractions to rationalize—”

“In layman’s terms, Bran,” Jon told his brother gently.

“We use math, both proven and theoretical to explain and predict natural phenomena,” Bran said, stopping suddenly as though deciding whether or not he should elaborate further.

The look of surprise on Tyrion Lannister’s face almost made Ned laugh, and he was not a man to laugh idly. Bran had clearly made an impression.

Ned glanced back at Cersei whose expression stood in stark contrast to that of her husband. Where Robert nodded in seeming acknowledgement that he had no idea what Bran just said, Cersei seethed with anger. It may have been the beginning of summer, but Ned felt a chill that made him think they were in the doldrums of winter. _It may only be June, but winter is coming_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *from GRRM's _A Game of Thrones_
> 
> And yes, the information about theoretical physics came straight from Wikipedia. I am open to feedback on how to clarify this subject in both this chapter and future chapters. If I haven't said so already. I'm in over my head.
> 
> As always, comments make me happy! And help me! Criticism, compliment, or general comment, all are welcome!


	6. JON

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I had a lot of starts and stops with this chapter, and just today I did a heavy edit to problem solve some fairly severe pacing issues. My goal for now until August is to be more consistent with the updates (and the good news is that I've already started the next chapter, so fingers crossed that I can stick to this plan!). Enjoy!
> 
> Also, I have to give a special thanks to the one and only [SassyEggs](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SassyEggs/pseuds/SassyEggs) for giving me some much needed feedback on the shitty first draft of this chapter. I don't know what I would do without bouncing ideas off of her.

 

 

**June 2013 – The Hamptons**

There were times when Jon was relieved that he was Catelyn’s stepson rather than real son. Granted, there were times when Jon wished nothing more than to be one of Catelyn’s perfect children, but he gleaned from the uncomfortable dinner they were all subjected to this evening that this summer would not be one of those times.

While Robb, Sansa, and Bran—the holy trinity, Jon and Arya called them—were expected to entertain the First Family after dinner for a drink in the study, Jon, Arya, and Rickon—the unholy trinity, Jon and Arya called themselves—were free from most of the responsibilities of hosting. Where the holy trinity instinctively went to the study, the unholy trinity were free to do as they wished, which at the moment meant going to Summerfalls’ liquor stores.

Jon grabbed his preferred red wine, a dry Malbec from the Martell family’s vineyard in Arizona, while Arya selected a bottle of Jack. Jon rolled his eyes at Arya’s choice and had to pry a bottle of vodka from Rickon’s hands as they left the stores. _I probably shouldn’t have brought him down here_ , Jon admitted, knowing Catelyn would disapprove as soon as she heard of it. _If she hears of it_. A lifetime of being a black-haired stepchild had made him adept at hiding his mistakes. _At least Rickon didn’t see me with the key_. To placate Rickon, Jon had entrusted Rickon with the safekeeping of the lighter they would need later, hoping that the thirteen-year-old would not try to play with it.

Leading his troubled brother and arguably crazier sister from the stores through the back entrance of the manor, Jon followed the usual path to the clearing in the woods to just west of the house.

Ever since Jon and Robb were old enough to know how to start and put out a fire, the kids would sneak out of the house to the clearing in the woods, though they had not really been sneaking, considering their father helped Jon and Robb remove the brush from the clearing and placed large stones in the middle to make a fire pit. It had been tradition for the Starks to sit around the formal fire pit just behind the house, past the outdoor dining area and patio, equidistant from the beach and the house, with the guest house off to the side. But Jon and Robb wanted a place of their own, away from their siblings.

Jon remembered the year they cleared it: it was 2000, and Robb was twelve and Jon was seventeen. That summer, they had wanted time away from their siblings—away from Sansa and her fairytales, away from Arya and her scabby knees, and away from toddler and the baby. They wanted to be away from the diapers and the crying, from both Rickon and Sansa. This clearing would be theirs, a space for brothers to be brothers.

Only, Theon Greyjoy spent the summer with the Starks after his first year at Phillips Exeter with Robb, so logically he came to the clearing with them to escape from the rest of the family, then it became a place for men to men.

Then, once Arya became a teenager, Robb and Jon had agreed that Arya was invited into their sacred space, since Arya and her scabby knees could keep up with how tough they thought themselves to be.

Then the next year, Sansa was torn about breaking up with Joffrey, and Robb insisted that she be allowed to come too, to blow off some steam, to be reminded that she was a Stark and that she was strong, which Jon did not argue. He did, however, feel a bit beleaguered when Sansa invited Jeyne to join her the next summer.

Just last year, the four oldest Starks decided to bring Bran to the clearing for his sixteenth birthday present, and also to get him high for the first time. This would be the summer that Rickon would join them.

All the summers before 2008, before Arya was invited, it was a space for brothers to be brothers. Then it became the place for siblings to be siblings, because despite the fact that Grejoys and Pooles would come to the clearing as well, Jon supposed that Theon and Jeyne had spent enough time with the Starks that they too were as much a part of the family as he was, and Jon sensed that they too were thorns in Catelyn’s side at times. This summer, Jon supposed it would be the place for Starks to be Starks. He supposed it might be the last summer, considering everything could change for them by the end of the year: he would be going to New York, Robb would begin at Stark Enterprises, Sansa would be off to England, Arya would be knee-deep at boot camp, Bran would be heading to MIT at only sixteen, and Rickon would return to Skagos Academy. The next generation of Starks would embark into the world in one way or another while their parents would likely leave the state. This was the last summer that they would be normal, or as normal as they ever were. Jon meant to enjoy it and to relax before he returned to the city.

Jon led his youngest sister and youngest brother to that very spot, following the path that had formed from thirteen summers of retreating to the woods of their childhood, where responsibility could be forgotten. Armed with their bottles of alcohol instead of twig-swords, they arrived at their destination after only a few minutes of tripping over broken branches from the storms that plagued the coast a month earlier. Plus, the moon was waning, so the overhead of the thick branches in the midst of June combined with little light made it difficult to see.

“I told you we should have brought a flashlight,” Arya snapped, though Jon knew his sister well enough to know that she was not angry. Arya snapped at people multiple times a day, though Jon hoped she would break herself of that habit before she went to South Carolina.

“We’re fine, Arya,” Jon insisted. Jon reached into his pocket and grabbed his phone to turn on the flashlight app.

“Who needs a flashlight in this day and age?” Rickon asked confused.

Jon and Robb had wisely prepared the area for use in the days leading up to the First Family’s arrival. The oldest Stark brothers had suspected they would need the stress-reliever. They were quick about it, working with Theon to clear out excess leaves and branches from the fall foliage, winter snow, and spring storms. They made sure that the logs and rocks were assembled in a cirlce and took the log loveseat Sansa loved so much out of storage along with the other lawn furniture they packed aware at the end of every summer. They had prepped the branches that would make ideal kindling and placed them carefully in the fire pit. They had even placed a tarp over the kindling, to ensure that no surprise storms would prevent them from having their release.

“Rickon, the lighter,” Jon ordered jokingly, winking at Rickon so the boy could be sure that his brother was not bossing him around. Rickon reached into his back-pocket for the long-stemmed lighter.

Jon lit the fire around the base, having picked out especially dry leaves for this very purpose.

The fire began slowly, as it always did. Jon used to love watching the fire grow. For those first couple summers of the clearing, Robb and Jon made a habit of watching the fire in comfortable silence. In the early days, there was still a huge difference between Jon’s and Robb’s experiences. At sixteen and seventeen, Jon had fooled around with girls—or, more accurately, just the one girl—while Robb was just starting to notice them. They had talked about sports and friends when they decided to talk, but mostly they focused on the peace of the flames.

Arya had already settled onto her preferred log-seat when Jon decided that the fire was not enough and began to observe his siblings. Rickon was standing on the outskirts of the circle, choosing not to sit.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jon saw Arya taking a sip of her bottle of Jack Daniels. Remembering his own bottle of alcohol, Jon grabbed his Swiss Army knife from his pocket to start peeling the seal on the top.

“Forget a cork screw?” Arya asked, a twinkle of sarcasm in her eye.

“I forgot nothing,” Jon insisted to his sister, ready to some of the skills he had developed the years since his first drink.

Arya smirked, and looked at his whiskey. “Do you think it’s the best career move to show your underage sister how to get into the liquor cellar, open a bottle of wine, and condone alcohol consumption by a fire?”

Jon pulled out the corkscrew and glanced at Arya. “You think that glass of wine you were allowed to have at dinner reflects well on the Governor and the President?” Jon smirked back at Arya, knowing how she liked to instigate in her own harmless way.

“Oh God, that dinner,” Arya moaned, rolling her eyes as she did before tossing back another drink.

Jon felt a shiver go down his spine as he remembered finishing the roast chicken and sitting through coffee before dessert. Cersei had taken a few more shots at Sansa before turning her attention to him.

“You know she was just trying to mess with you, right?” Arya said quietly. Jon wondered if she did not want Rickon to hear.

“I know,” Jon said, also to placate his sister. The First Lady had pulled out all of the stops once she decided to spread the wealth at the dinner table. She had spoken of Jon’s mother, had referred to the few times that she had spoken to her. She had even mentioned her funeral. Jon did not know what provoked Cersei to speak of his mother in the first place, though he suspected that it had to do with the sixth glass of Riesling that she had.

In truth, Jon had no memories of his mother. He knew her name was Ashara Dayne. He knew that she was beautiful, based on what his Uncle Arthur and Uncle Benjen had told him. He knew that she was his father’s college girlfriend, and that they had met in college, that his Uncle Brandon had introduced them because his father was too nervous to do so himself. He knew that she went with his father and Robert Baratheon to every spring break vacation they had, whether it was at the President’s homestead or somewhere in the Caribbean. He knew that his father had loved her, deeply. He suspected that his stepmother was jealous of her. Yet despite all of this knowledge, he did not know her.

“She was drinking a lot tonight, did you see that?” Arya asked as though it were some secret.

“She drinks like a fish,” Rickon added, desperate to be a part of the conversation with the siblings who understood him.

“She’s been drinking like that for years,” Jon stated matter-of-factly, finally uncorking the wine bottle. “This is why you need one of these, Arya.”

She lazily glanced at his action, before taking another swig from her bottle. Jon chose to wait to let the wine breathe.

“Why couldn’t I bring something to drink?” Rickon said, almost whining as he spoke. After he finished, his lips formed a pout, one he most likely learned from Sansa.

“You’re thirteen,” Arya stated definitively, as though that would be enough to placate Rickon. “You think she’s drank that much before?”

“Don’t you remember last Thanksgiving? At the Arryns’?” Jon asked.

“I think I tried to spend that vacation with Sansa as much as possible, believe it or not,” Arya said in a monotone voice.

“Really? _You_ spent a _vacation_ with _Sansa_?” Jon said, continuing to smell the wine as he let it breathe.

“It was Thanksgiving with the Arryns and the Baratheons. Can you blame me? Besides, Sansa’s friend Mya is pretty cool.”

Jon vaguely remembered Mya Stone, with her short raven-colored hair, striking blue eyes, and tomboy demeanor. He remembered liking her, and failing at flirting with her.

“Mom said Mya is coming this summer,” Rickon piped up from his rock. Arya and Jon had to turn their heads to where Rickon had wandered, on a far edge of the circle. The unholy trinity had formed a triangle around the fire, and Jon was faintly amused at their subconscious positioning of themselves.

“Really?” Arya said, partly disbelieving, although Jon could tell that there was some part of her that looked forward to it.

“Yeah, Mya and that other one,” Rickon responded to Arya’s disbelief with a certain haughtiness, although it disappeared when he could not recall the name of Sansa’s other best friend from college.

“Myranda?” Arya said, less enthusiastically. Jon remembered this friend as well, with her generous curves and long hair. He vaguely remembered reading about some scandal she had been involved in right out of high school, marrying one of her father’s business partners for a few months.

“She’s alright,” Arya acknowledged before taking another drink from her bottle. “She could stand to lose a few pounds though.”

“Arya!” Jon said, surprised at his sister’s comment.

“What?!” Arya said, surprised at his response.

“You—we can’t—even I know that you don’t talk about women like that,” Jon said, remembering back to how Ygritte used mock other girls, but as soon as someone said something about their appearance, she chastised them, chastise being a kind word for the words that came out of her mouth.

“You don’t think she needs to lose a few pounds?” Arya said, raising her eyebrows as she spoke.

“Don’t answer that question, I’ve gotten in trouble for answering that,” Rickon with his sagely and earnest advice.

“I won’t answer, don’t worry.”

“Jon—”

“No, stop,” Jon said before Arya could get him to incriminate himself.

Thinking he had spent enough time letting the bottle aerate, Jon took a careful sip of the wine. He had discovered that he liked the Martells’ red wines when he had returned from overseas, and was even more thrilled when he discovered the his father and Catelyn kept ample stores of the label in all of their homes. Before he was discharged, Jon had preferred whiskey and tequila to wine, but found that he preferred sour reds and dark beers since his return. These were luxuries he rarely had in Afghanistan, and he discovered a new appreciation for them once he could have them whenever he wanted once more.

“Well, what do you want to talk about then?” Arya said, sounding exasperated.

“Well, the Baratheons are here,” Jon shrugged nonchalantly. “I was thinking we could blow off some steam. Especially since we had the chance to escape the after-dinner drink.”

Jon passed off the slight of their exclusion with humor, except it hurt him more than he would ever admit that he resented the fact that their absences were looked forward to by some people on the property.

“You mean talk shit?” Arya smiled at him.

“Exactly!” Jon gave an exaggerated nod in return.

“What was Joffrey’s deal with his new girlfriend?” Arya snorted, taking another drink of whiskey. “Expecting us to know who she is. Who the fuck does he think she is? Who the fuck does _he_ think he is?”

“I think he thinks the sun shines out his ass,” Rickon chimed in, almost encouraged by Arya’s swearing.

“I think his mom has taught him that he in the center of the universe,” Jon said after swallowing another bit of wine. He turned to Arya, “Have you heard of her before?”

“Margaery Tyrell?” Arya’s eyebrows rose before she shook her head. “She’s probably a society girl if she’s a Tyrell and a Vanderbilt. Sansa and Jeyne would know more about her. _Myranda_ too.”

“Was he trying to make fun of Sansa?” Rickon asked, and his confusion was clear as day.

Jon and Arya exchanged glances, and Jon was unsure of how to answer the loaded question.

“I’m not sure “making fun” is the right way to think about it,” Jon began.

“He wanted to make her feel bad about herself, Rickon,” Arya stated bluntly, not caring about the nuances of the dynamics of Joffrey and Sansa’s relationship to their troubled brother. “He wants her to think she made a mistake breaking up with him. Like she is missing out and now he has a newer, better Sansa to take her place.”

“Is Margaery Tyrell even like Sansa?” Rickon probed further. Jon drank more of his wine.

Arya smiled at him before she responded, “Margaery would be so lucky.”

“Hold on,” Jon said sarcastically, “Arya, are you complimenting _Sansa_? I never thought I’d live to see this.”

“Shut up,” Arya punched Jon in the shoulder and acted annoyed.

“Seriously, tomboy, devilish Arya Minisa defending girly, angelic Sansa Lyanna,” Jon said, laughing. “You used to mess up her make-up after she spent hours putting it on, and she used to call you Arya Horseface.”

“Jeyne called me Arya Horseface,” Arya corrected. “Sansa just didn’t stop her from saying it. Besides, we were kids then. She’s a Stark, and Baratheons and Lannisters are not going to take her down while I’m alive.”

“I don’t understand why the First Lady doesn’t like Sansa,” Rickon complained. Jon remembered back to when he was thirteen, how he understood some of the complexities of his father’s business and political dealings. He could tell that his father would tense up around Cersei Lannister-Baratheon and that the Mayor of Buffalo made Catelyn’s face go slightly pale. Though Jon might not have understood the entirety of why his parents behaved that way, he still could grasp some of it. These intricacies went unnoticed by Rickon.

“The cunt probably wanted to keep Sansa on her toes,” Arya gave her best guess in between sips of Jack Daniels. “I’ll bet she was pissed when Sansa broke up with him.”

“Arya, let’s not forget that Sansa and the others will be joining us, possibly soon, and you probably won’t want them to walk-in on us mid-conversation,” Jon reminded his sister. He drank from his wine bottle again. He could feel his face and his fingers vibrating, and he knew the strength of the Martells’ Malbec was kicking in.

“Sansa will probably want to badmouth Joffrey when she gets out here,” Arya shot back at him.

“When have you ever known Sansa to badmouth anyone? Even the people who fuck her over?”

Arya shrugged at his question, and Jon knew her well enough to know that she thought she was right and he was wrong.

The fire had grown brighter, the glow from the flames flickered in reflection off of the leaves.

“Do you think he’s asked Dad yet?” Arya was quiet, and for a moment she was unrecognizable: Arya, the Stark who was never scared of anything, sounded frightened and weak at the thought of why the Baratheons had joined them that summer.

“They disappeared into the study right after the First Family got here,” Jon acknowledged. _Which means the President had some scotch or whiskey as an appetizer to dinner._ Jon wondered if the President and First Lady drank as much as they did when they were with the Starks as they did in the White House.

“What do you think Dad will say?” Arya asked again, nervousness ringing through her voice.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I think we’ll have to wait and see like the rest of the world.”

Voices could be heard in the distance through the trees. Jon felt relieved at the prospect of a possible change of subject. Sansa’s red hair reflected the firelight brilliantly to alert the unholy trinity that their respite was over. Theon followed Sansa, his arm lazily holding Jeyne’s shoulder, and she was clearly enjoying his attentions, as often happened when they drank together. Bran was not far behind, his glasses lit up by the flames.

Each person was carrying their share of necessities for a comfortable night by the fire: Theon had an open bottle of wine in his hands, likely his preferred Bordeaux, while Sansa was holding a bottle of champagne. Bran had been tasked with carrying mason jars for them while Jeyne had two flutes in her hands.

“Ahoy!” Theon said as he tripped over a branch on the path. Theon grinned at the unholy trinity, and Jon thought not for the first time that Theon would inducted into it if the addition would not mess-up the trio’s name. “We come bearing gifts. Mainly our presence.”

Jeyne laughed at Theon’s pun, and Jon looked at Arya who was already shooting daggers at Jon. She had expressed anger long ago that Theon had earned an invite into the clearing before she did. Regardless of Arya’s displeasure at their arrival, Theon and Jeyne sat on a log on the far side of the clearing, close to wear Rickon was standing, although he looked a bit uncomfortable at their arrival.

“Sorry to disturb you,” Sansa said somewhat cheerily, although Jon discovered years ago that she just knew how to hide her feelings exceedingly well.

Sansa was practically dancing, humming to herself too, as she made her way to Jeyne to steal a champagne flute from her hand before she glided to the wooden loveseat situated the furthest from the fire pit. Sansa always preferred to be distant from the fire, since she claimed it made her hair smell like smoke and dried her skin out.

“What gotten into you, San?” Arya said, a faint tone of mockery underneath. Jon rolled his eyes that Arya seemed to forget what they had just been talking about.

“That would be a lot of Riesling,” Jeyne said, her face red, likely from the wine as well.

Sansa shrugged. “One has to numb oneself when with Cersei and Joffrey for long periods of time.” Her monotone made Jon uncomfortable. She had been with Joffrey for three years _._ _When did she start numbing herself?_

Bran placed himself on the lawn-chair next to the loveseat, leaving Sansa alone. Jon had a feeling that Jeyne would not be joining her, if Theon’s drunken flirtations were anything to go by; Theon had long ago bragged about how he had Jeyne on the leash. Sansa did not seem to mind, though, as she was already pouring champagne into her glass; she did fill the glass near to the brim though.

“Pouring that awfully close, aren’t ya, San?” Arya could not help but comment.

“After that dinner and digestif?” Sansa raised one of her eyebrows in response to Arya.

“Did it get worse as the brandy entered her bloodstream?” Jon asked drily.

“She had port _and_ Cognac,” Sansa sarcastically smiled at Jon before taking a deep sip of her champagne. Jon shook his head. Sansa returned Jon’s shake of the head with her own as she swallowed the champagne. “I think what’s most remarkable is she gets more verbally acrobatic when she drinks more. More acid-tongued than drunkenly stumbling. I don’t know how she does it. The part of me that has stumbled home through Harvard Square and Landsowne Street is jealous of her.” Sansa put on a pout. Jon knew she was faking.

“Jealouss of the leggy blonde?” Theon slurred. “Sanssa, h-how clish-cliché of you.”

“Jealous of the First Lady?” Bran chimed in as he poured himself some of Theon’s Bordeaux. Jon was praying especially hard now that Catelyn would not discover that Bran was drinking out here.

“Jealous of an alcoholic who hates her husband?” Arya took it to the nines.

Bran choked on his wine, while Sansa sprayed the last sip of her champagne in front of her.

“Sansa!” Jeyne exclaimed laughing.

“Sorry, sorry,” Sansa was quick to make amends, but smiling all the while. “ _That_ was not very ladylike.” Sansa giggled, and the flush on her face told Jon that the Riesling and champagne were doing their job for Sansa.

“You’ll have to pay us off or we’ll tell the tabloids,” Bran jested. Sansa shook her head at her brother as she wiped the champagne with her long-sleeved tee that read “HARVARD” across the chest.

“Where’s Robb?” Arya asked as she looked towards the quiet path in the woods.

“The President wanted to have a word with him,” Bran said. Jon felt a pang of envy at the fact that his younger brother got to have a word with the President of the United States. _But I’m the oldest Stark_ was always what went through Jon’s head when he had these feelings: jealousy, a tightening in his chest, and a faint sense of failure.

“And he’ll ne-need to s-stop in the celllar to get some refresshmentss,” Theon said. Jeyne giggled. Jon rolled his eyes. “He alsso ssaid he was gonna bring the Hound.”

The Starks and the honorary Starks all fell quiet at the new piece of information. _Shit._

“Fucking hell!” Arya shouted. “The Hound? What if he brings Joffrey out here?”

“He won’t bring, Joffrey,” Jon tried to convince Arya. Clegane knew better. “And could we all make an effort to not call a member of the Secret Service ‘the Hound’?”

“Feeling a bit protective of your fellow servissemen, Sta-stark?” Theon teased, though Jon hated to admit that he hit the nail on the head. Aside from that, the Starks owed a debt to Clegane. Sansa just insisted on keeping everything quiet. In fact, she was vehement about it.

“And why not?” Sansa defended Jon. “The eldest of the—what, sixteenth generation of Starks in America?—is following the footsteps of countless other Starks by joining the New York City Police Department. First a Boy Scout, then a Marine, now a cop.”

Jon shrugged at Sansa, his usual show of humility and thanks.

“To Jon,” Sansa raised her jar of champagne, “our very own brother-in-arms.”

“To Jon,” Theon raised his wine bottle in a typical grandiose manner, and Jon wanted to roll his eyes at Theon’s gesture. The Minnesota native had a habit of making things all about him. “Our very own stick in the mud.”

Jon watched as Sansa rolled her eyes at Theon before giving Arya a pointed look.

“To Jon!” Arya said, startled, lifting her bottle of whiskey up high.

“To Jon.” “To Jon.” “To Jon.” The chorus of his name made him uncomfortable. Being the center of attention had made him uncomfortable ever since he was a child. He wondered if that was another bit of neuroses that came from being Catelyn Tully’s stepson.

Jon could hear the faint sound of deep voices in the distance. He guessed it was Robb and Clegane, but he held up his hand to the other Starks in case there were unwanted guests. His father could not afford to have his children and their friends mocking the First Family, the family of his oldest friend.

Robb was visible first, the red in his brown hair being one giveaway, the other being the fact that he was dwarfed by the man behind him was another. They too were armed with their preferred drinks and jars.

“I see you started without me,” Robb said with a laugh, pointing at Theon with his Guinness. Theon, who might as well have been approaching a blackout, stared back with little to no comprehension on his face.

“Couldnthelpmyself,” Theon slurred in defense. Robb only laughed and shook his head at his best friend. Jon had always been confused as to how they even became best friends in the first place.

“Did we miss anything?” Robb continued happily finding a stone seat next to the log that Jeyne and Theon amorously inhabited. Robb nodded to the giant Secret Service agent, standing awkwardly at the edge of the circle with a bottle of scotch at his side, “Take a seat, Clegane.”

Clegane carefully flicked his eyes around the circle, before settling onto the loveseat that Sansa was occupying. Jon watched closely as Sansa nodded at him. Clegane continued to circle the outer rim of the clearing as he made his way to the seat. Jon noticed that Sansa seemed to be actively avoiding Clegane’s gaze, which was focused intently on her. Once Clegane arrived at his destination, he settled on the seat without saying anything to Sansa.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Arya snarled, “a Hound who’s forgot his manners.”

“Arya!” a wide-eyed Sansa admonished.

“What? He can come onto our property, into our woods, and doesn’t even say hello?”

“He’s our guest, Arya,” Robb joined Sansa, although his steadfastness was far more commanding than Sansa’s embarrassment. He popped the top of his Guinness and waited a few seconds before pouring the thick stout on the side of his Mason jar. “We will treat him as we are supposed to treat guests, as mother and father taught us.”

“Yeah, but mom and dad probably never expected Joffrey’s bodyguard to be here,” Arya pushed back, eyebrows furrowed at how her siblings could embrace such a man as Clegane. She had no idea what Clegane had done for them, for Sansa, when things took a turn for the worse with Joff, when the bruises started to become noticeable and Sansa was wearing thick turtlenecks in the middle of July.

“Arya, Sandor is a Secret Service agent,” Sansa impressed upon their younger sister. Sansa always paid attention to labels and status. Sometimes Jon wondered if that was why she dated Joffrey in the first place. “He is more than a bodyguard.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Arya rolled her eyes, as she often did to Sansa’s propriety—and their mother’s. “I’m just gonna leave. I’ve a gram and bowl that will be better company than all of you.”

Arya stood up. She ruffled Jon’s hair in the way she had started doing when she was six, when she thought it was fun to do to her oldest brother what everyone did to her. Armed with her bottle of Jack Daniels in her hand—half empty at this point in the night, and Jon wondered just how high her tolerance was—she walked away from the circle, the place where Starks were supposed to be able to be Starks, and soon disappeared into the darkness of the trees.

“Ding dong, the—” Theon began to say before Jeyne began laughing maniacally at his reference.

“Did anything else amusing happen in the study?” Jon asked to change the direction of the conversation. Clegane’s arrival had clearly shifted the atmosphere at the fire, save for Jeyne and Theon on their log on the other side. “By all accounts, who’s winning that, uh, that competition Sansa and Joffrey have?”

“What competition?” Rickon piped up from his rock. Clegane leaned back in his seat, his face as it always was—apathetic yet angered at the same time—and he poured some scotch into a Mason jar.

“Nothing, Rickon,” Sansa said without taking her eyes of Jon, and Jon wondered if she were annoyed or flattered that the attention was on her. _Probably both_.

“Seriously, San, what do you call it?” Robb pushed, a slight smile on his face. Most of the Stark siblings relished the chance to embarrass Sansa.

“The who-won-the-break-up competition,” Bran, who never forgot anything, answered for her. Her face turned beat-red, and she quickly covered her face with her hands. For a brief moment, Jon thought that Clegane’s face looked amused.

“I would argue that Sansa has the victory, although Mrs. Baratheon and Joffrey seem pretty convinced that Joffrey is neck-and-neck with her,” Jeyne said, giggling as Theon drew circles on her arm with his right ring finger while his left hand rubbed her shoulder slowly. Jon could understand her laughter, and her fawning over Theon, only Jon had seen him do this with too many women and girls to find it amusing. He was certain Jeyne would wake up tomorrow with nothing but a hangover and regret that she once again fell for Theon’s charms. “Joffrey went on about Margaery a bit more. If you ask me, it sounded like she won his campaign rather than he did.”

“Maybe Margaery won the competition,” Jon deadpanned.

“I thought Joffff cle-clearly won,” Theon said in humorous drunken seriousness—Jon has seen the expression and heard the tone before in many different people. Theon grinned wickedly before he said the next part: “Or Cersssei thought so when Sansa s-said she d-didn’t have a boyfriend.”

Sansa’s face remained beet red as her lips tightened into a line and her expression reflected her mortification. Clegane licked his lips as he lifted his jar to his mouth.

“I don’t know, San,” Jon tried to hide his smirk, “sounds like a close race.”

Jon knew from Sansa’s eyes, always so expressive, that if she was sitting next to him, she would have punched him, however feebly considering Sansa did not know how to throw a punch.

“Harvard and Oxford seem to me like they beat USC,” Clegane’s Scottish accent mumbled from behind his glass. Sansa’s eyes flickered as soon as Clegane spoke, yet she did not turn her head to him.

Jon’s eyes glanced around the fire to gauge everyone’s reaction to Clegane’s words.

“I think a double concentration in literature and poli-sci sounds a lot better than just a poli-sci degree,” Jeyne piped up with a smile on face and a giggle waiting on her mouth.

“I would argue that breaking up with Joffrey was a victory in itself,” Bran said quietly, watching his jar as he sloshed his red wine around. Everyone turned to look at Bran.

“Thank you, Bran,” Sansa said in her most genuine way, the redness of her cheeks lessening from the praise she received from her peers. “Walking away was the best victory.”

“Making the competition pointless, right?” Bran said, a twinkle in his eye.

“Of course,” Sansa said, winking at Bran as her confidence returned to her. As Theon and Jeyne resumed whispering to one another and Robb watched on, bemused at Theon’s antics and Jeyne’s decision-making, Jon continued watching their redheaded sister, she carefully looked at Clegane, biting her lower lip as she shyly made eye contact with the man. The corners of her mouth turned up slightly and she nodded at the man, who watched out of the corner of his eye, his head slightly turned. Clegane nodded at her. In response, Sansa graced him with a shy smile before her eyes flicked to Jon. She blushed once more as she darted her eyes away from Jon. Clegane glanced over at him too before shifting in his seat, and Jon found himself wondering what he had just observed.

“Let’s make a toast,” Robb said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To give credit where credit is due, the middle names of Sansa and Arya (though switched) came from [Nevermore_red](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevermore_red/pseuds/Nevermore_red)'s series [Shouldn't](http://archiveofourown.org/series/305295). Although I like that Neveremore_red wrote the full names as Sansa Minisa and Arya Lyanna, I switched them for reasons that will be made clearer...at some point (not sure yet when though). I just loved the pairings of the names and I thought it would be appropriate for this universe that I am slowly giving my soul to build. Yikes.
> 
> As always, comments are welcomed and encouraged.


	7. SANSA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter picks up right where the previous chapter left off, so a re-read is possibly advised, but obviously not required.

**June 2013 – The Hamptons**

Sansa took a deep breath as Robb started talking. _Just keep breathing_.

“A toast to surviving this summer,” Robb said as he raised his Mason jar in the air.

Bran’s eyes flick to Sandor before settling on Sansa. She nodded slightly at him. Bran raised his jar of wine to join the toast. Sansa could tell he was still uncertain.

“To summer!” Theon slurred, his eyes practically closed. Sansa was skeptical Jeyne would be able to accomplish her goal that evening.

Sandor’s jar of scotch joined the others, and Sansa noted the subtle confusion on Bran’s face. Sandor’s willingness to join in Robb’s toast would be news to everyone but Jon, Robb, and Jeyne. They were barely batting an eye at his presence and his behavior, whereas Arya had already stormed off and Bran still questioned the turn of events. Then, of course, there was Theon, who was far too gone to notice anything at this point.

“To summer!” repeated around the circle, and she found herself glancing back at Jon to see if he was still watching her. His eyes were on his bottle of wine, but they flicked back to her in no time. _It’s nothing_ , she had to remind herself while trying to act normal. _He only sat with me because it’s the furthest seat from the fire_. She felt a heat spread through even as she tried to convince herself.

“To summer,” she said quietly before sipping her champagne. Despite consuming more than enough calories from the five glasses of Riesling she drank at dinner, she knew that she was not ready to give up the buzz she had built up, especially since she felt like that buzz might be the only thing powerful enough to overcome the knots that had tightened in her stomach since the First Family’s arrival.

She looked Sandor over out of the corner of her right eye. While the others, mainly Robb, Theon, and Jeyne on the far side of the fire, continued chatting about what they needed to do over the summer, Sansa took in the scarred side of his face, poorly hidden by his long hair. She did not know what part or where this feeling came from, but a part of her wanted to brush his hair off his face and tell him not to hide, not here, not in the clearing.

Her gaze moved from his face to his arms and chest. _Has he gotten more muscular_? His biceps and his chest, though covered by a sweatshirt, and his thighs, nicely wrapped in a pair of jeans, looked larger and more imposing than the last time that she had laid eyes on him. Sansa felt a thrill travel from her neck down her spine. Goosebumps rose on her legs, exposed from the cut-off denim shorts she changed into before grabbing her champagne, as she shivered in response. Sandor turned his head to her. Sansa thought she saw him take in her legs. She tried to prevent herself from smiling. She always hated giving herself away. Their eyes met.

“You cold?” His Scottish brogue almost made her shiver all over again.

Sansa shook her head, feeling her cheeks heat up, praying that she was not blushing. “I’ll be fine.”

If she thought she had been mortified when Jon had brought up the competition Joffrey supposedly liked to have, she knew she was even more so now, and she had not even said anything. _He doesn’t know what I’m thinking_ , she had to repeat to herself.

“So Sansa, what are _your_ plans this summer?” Jeyne said, eyebrows raised and mischief in her eyes. Though Jeyne was often as demure and well-behaved as Sansa, alcohol and Theon made often overrode those sensibilities. She wished she was close enough to kick her best friend once more.

Sansa took another deep breath. “Let’s see,” she began, hoping to bide some time as she waited for her thoughts to return to her. She had always been so good with words and propriety, yet when boys were involved, she often lost her cool. _And Sandor Clegane is not a boy_. “I would like to use enough sunscreen to not get sunburned. I would like to have mimosas and mai tais on the beach, every day.”

“I will support you in that,” Jeyne said with a grin, though Sansa was nervous about the plotting that Jeyne was clearly doing in her head.

“Me too,” Theon nodded, his eyes open but blank. _He’s definitely blackout_.

“Any thing you absolutely need to do before going to England?” Robb asked, grinning as usual. It often seemed like his grin was stamped onto his face.

“Just one decent American summer before I go where it always rains.”

“A wet hot American summer?” Jeyne joked back. Sandor’s right eyebrow arched as he shot a dubious look at Sansa.

“Exactly,” she responded, not letting Jeyne’s boldness make her budge. This was Summerfalls, this was her safe place, her territory. Her best friend's teasing and the piercing gaze of a 6'6" Scotsman would scare her. Even though it thrilled her.

“So drinking and…?” Jon clarified.

“Drinking and avoiding Baratheons and Lannisters,” Robb answered for her. Bran once again looked at Sandor, this time out of the corner of his eye.

“That too,” Sansa admitted, looking pointedly at Bran. She wanted him to know that it was safe, that Sandor would never cause her harm.

“Well, we’ve started the summer right, then,” Theon said, practically choking on his words. Jeyne was going to need to put him in bed soon. “Another toast.”

Theon raised his wine in the air, only for most of it to slosh over and spill on his white shirt.

“Alright, perhaps it’s Theon’s bedtime,” Jeyne said, now using Theon’s arm that had been around her since they departed the main house to stabilize him as they both stood.

“I’m not sure you joining him would be wise,” Robb said, a bit arrogantly. He could act a bit arrogantly on occasion, though not often. Sansa was unsure where it came from, but whenever it surfaced, it bothered her.

“Do you really think I’m going to take advantage of a drunken idiot?” Jeyne said, joking but rather defiant. “You know me better than that, Robert Stark.”

“Alright, fair enough,” he responded. “Do you need help?”

Almost imperceptibly, Jeyne’s head tilted slightly in Sansa's and Sandor's direction, and Sansa prepared herself for another round of embarrassment. Jeyne only nodded at Robb.

“Especially with the stairs,” she admitted.

“I’ll help you then,” Robb volunteered. He drank down the last of his Guinness before he stood up, walked to the other side of Theon, and grabbed his other arm to put around his shoulder. As they started walking, Sansa realized that Theon’s feet were almost dragging. _Good Lord._

As they walked passed Sandor and her, Sansa saw Jeyne wink at her, and she felt her cheeks heat up again. _I should have never told her about that dream_. Her mind wandered to hurried kisses and large, strong hands grabbing her hips before she remembered where she was.

“You coming?” she heard Robb ask Jon—or maybe it was Bran.

“I’ll watch the fire burnout,” Jon responded. _Stop getting dazed, Sansa Lyanna Stark_. She was close to giving herself a pep talk when she realized Sandor was watching her. She blushed.

“Still a boy scout, I see,” Robb said with a laugh. Robb nodded at their eldest brother. He turned to Rickon, still on the outside of the fire, as he had been since they had arrived not an hour before, and said, “Alright. Come on, Rickon. It’s time for bed.”

“‘Time for bed’? I’m not a child anymore!” Rickon shouted defiantly.

“That’s true,” Robb conceded. Their mother had spoken to Jon, Robb, and Sansa earlier in the week about how Rickon was meant to be managed this summer. “But, we could really use your help with Theon. Someone has to open the doors while Jeyne and I drag him all over. Can you do your duty, Rickon?”

Sansa looked to their youngest brother, who was currently chewing his lip.

“I can do my duty,” Rickon replied loudly. He walked around the circle to lead the way for Robb, Jeyne, and Theon and followed the path into the dark trees. The trio walked off into the woods, engulfed by the darkness, and only three little Starks and a Scotsman were left.

Sansa sipped her champagne again, realizing that her buzz was dimming for the first time in a few hours. She did not want to be entirely sober if she would have to deal with Sandor sitting next to her while two of her brothers watched her, let alone two brothers who were quite good at observation.

She heard a chuckle from across the circle, and looked to see Jon shaking his head.

“What?” Bran said, a smile on his lips.

“Theon’s going to have a headache tomorrow,” Jon burst into laughter at the thought. Sansa found herself laughing too, only because her oldest brother was so amused at Theon’s poor choices. Jon had never been the biggest fan of Theon, and Jon had also never been a huge partier. The polar opposite, Theon had always been a big fan of himself _and_ a huge partier, ever since he was in prep school with Robb, and some things never change. Last year, when shebegan researching where she wanted to study abroad, Theon kept encouraging her to go to Australia or New Zealand since that was where he spent half his junior year solely so he could drink a lot of wine and avoid learning a new language. Considering that Jon and Robb both spoke Arabic, Pashto, and Dari, she could only imagine Jon’s reaction if and when he heard that detail.

Adding to his less admirable qualities, Theon had been present the first time Sansa had ever gotten drunk—truly drunk—and he had been in far worse condition that night three years ago than he was this night. She had made out with him that night, and Robb had given Theon quite an earful about it, warning him that if he ever laid a hand on another one of his sisters, then he would no longer be welcome with the family. She suspected that there was more to the threat, but no one had ever spoken to her about it. She had to bribe Alys Karstark with chocolate and Moscato to find out what had happened. Only, Robb had no idea how much she had flirted with Theon, how much she had been trying to forget about Joffrey when she did it, and how she had been thinking about someone much taller and larger than Theon the entire time they had been kissing.

“Theon needs a wakeup call sooner or later,” she said, trying to act wiser than her twenty years. She could not remember if Sandor was thirty-two or thirty-three, but she knew that she did not want to be thought of as a girl by him. She felt as though she was being watched closely by all three of them surrounding her, and she did not want them to infantilize her, as her family was wont to do when away from outsiders. She was hoping that Jon at least did not consider Sandor an outsider.

“That’s true, but 2013 is not the year for a Theon intervention,” Jon said, smiling still.

“He usually get that drunk?” Sandor asked.

“Yes,” Sansa, Jon, and Bran answered at the same time.

“Bran, how do you know he gets that bad?” Sansa asked incredulously.

“Sansa, it’s been ten years since Theon started summering with us,” Bran said as he looked straight at her, unsure if he should hide his deduction skills. “You started bringing me out here last summer. I’ve seen enough to know.”

“Fair enough,” Jon said. That was both his and Robb’s favorite response when they conceded defeat in verbal sparring. Sansa and Bran typically won those battles.

“He’ll be fine in the morning,” she said, looking at Sandor as she spoke, “but I assure you: he’s had enough practice with hangovers that he can survive just fine.”

Sandor Clegane was not a man who smiled often, but Sansa did not miss how the corners of mouth turned upwards, slightly. She felt herself swell with pride at the notion that she made this stoic man smile.

“Theon’s likely had worse than that, I’d bet,” Jon said, still smirking at Theon’s antics. She was grateful that he had not paid attention to her just then.

“Without all of the pomp and circumstance,” Bran began, “let’s have a real toast?”

He looked at all three of his companions, waiting for approval. Bran often sought the approval of his elders. In that way among many others, Sansa could sympathize with him.

“Alright,” Sansa said, raising her champagne flute as she did. “A toast?”

“Yes,” Jon joined as he raised his wine bottle, “a toast?”

“A toast,” Bran began, his eyes steadfast behind his glasses, “to staying sane this summer.”

Sansa laughed, a full-bellied, whole-hearted laugh that she had not heard herself make since she was a child. She saw Sandor look at her out of the corner of his eye.

“To staying sane,” Sandor said, the left corner of his mouth twitching amidst the scarring on the left side of his face.

“To staying sane” Jon said. The tone of Jon’s voice prompted Sansa to turn to him, but when she did the look on his face caused her to look away.

“Clegane,” Jon began, and Sansa felt her stomach drop. “I’m sure you know that me and Robb have already talked at length about how to handle this summer.”

Jon’s eyebrows were raised as he looked unwaveringly at Sandor. Sansa felt a new nervousness when she realized what Jon would want to discuss with Sandor, right in front of Bran.

“The other one might have mentioned something of the sort,” Sandor rasped.

“Sansa should not be alone with Joffrey this summer,” Jon began. Sandor’s face remained blank. She wondered if he too questioned whether they should be discussing such things in front of her other brother, the one whose intelligence her family had bragged about during dinner. She knew that thought was ridiculous. _Sandor doesn’t think about those things. Sandor doesn’t think about me_.

She saw Sandor’s head nod out of the corner of her eye. She did not want to look at him just now. Despite all the blushing she had done throughout the night, she was sure her face was as pale as snow just then.

“Do you understand me, Clegane?” Jon said carefully. There was no threat to his voice, Sansa could tell, having seen Jon confront Joffrey in the past, but there was a note of uncertainty in him too. She felt another twinge of embarrassment that her older brothers had put so much effort in trying to protect her. She had never felt so weak in the eyes of her family.

“For my part, I can say that I will look out for your sister,” Sandor said, almost mumbling. “Been doing it for long enough.”

She felt like a small child at that. _He speaks of me as though I am a burden he is responsible for. Just another body that he protects out of duty_. Giving in to her urge, she glanced at Sandor and saw that he was not daring to look at her. She could not explain why that caused a pang in her chest.

“And Sansa knows what is best for her,” Jon said. As much as he was clearly looking out for her, Sansa wanted to scream at him that he did not know anything. _Who is he to say what I do and do not know?_ Jon had not even seen the worst of what Joffrey did to her, or knew what pushed Sandor to speak with Robb and him in the first place. Sansa wanted to shout in her seat by the fire, but she knew such a thing would not be proper. Her mother had taught her well.

She heard Sandor say, with his grating voice that she thought of at night, “I think you’re sister is far more aware of that than you are.”

She could feel Jon’s eyes on her, and she suspected Bran’s were too, and instead of meeting their gaze, she chose to watch the champagne fizz in her glass.

The quiet continued, and she wondered if Sandor’s words had raked or only silenced Jon. _I don’t want to be here_.

“I’m going back to the house,” she said. She swallowed the last of her champagne before she stood up. She felt her knees almost buckle as she wobbled on her feet. A large hand grabbed her arm, holding her in a strong grip. She did not need to look to know who it was. She remembered what his hands felt like.

“I’ll walk you,” she heard Sandor say as he removed his hand once she was steadied. He turned to Jon, “You’ll take care of the fire?”

Jon nodded in response. Sansa looked up at Sandor, now standing, as he gulped the last of his scotch. She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. She felt her cheeks grow hot once more.

“Good night,” Sansa said quietly. Jon nodded at her while Bran just watched on. She bent over, carefully since she was now perhaps passed the point of being buzzed, to pick up her bottle of champagne before she began walking along the beaten-down path. She had seen Sandor grab his bottle of scotch after he stood and could now hear him moving behind her. He had a quiet walk, the walk of someone used to being a shadow of people who preferred to ignore him.

She felt Jon and Bran’s eyes on them, or at least she was panicked that they were. She hoped that Sandor would not begin speaking until they were a safe distance from the clearing. There was so much she wanted to stay, but none of it in front of her brothers. Or her sister. Or even Jeyne.

She listened to their steps on the path, biding her time. As they approached the outskirts of the trees, She realized that her heart was pounding, and despite her Ivy League education, she was momentarily terrified that he could hear it as well as she could. _Just say something_.

“How have you been?” She rolled her eyes that she could not think of something better to say.

She heard him cough. She turned to look at him.

“Been better,” was all he said in response. She tried to let her deflation show.

Sansa felt chagrined that Sandor Clegane could so easily come to her defense yet could barely manage a conversation with her. She had not spoken to him, interacted with him, or even seen him in the two years since her graduation from Phillips Exeter. Even though she had seen him during her senior year, she had not been able to interact with him at all, not with Joffrey and all of the brownnosers that he surrounded himself with watching her at a distance for most of the year. The Sandor Clegane that she remembered could just be a figment of her imagination, the reason why she woke up from her dreams in the middle of the night sweating. The man in front of her could be the furthest thing from the man in her memories.

“You?” He coughed the question rather than spoke.

“I suppose I’ve been better too,” she decided honesty was best with him. He had always been able sense when she was lying, better than most people. It had initially made her distrustful of him, since he saw through her façade. Having people see through an air was always nerve-wracking for teenagers. If she had known that this skill of his would have helped her so profoundly, she would not have been so terrified of him.

She heard him huff. He peered at him as they continued to walk the path, the lights of the mansion visible through the trees now that they were on the edge of the woods.

“So this wasn’t what you were picturing for your final summer before Oxford, eh?”

Sansa smiled at his question, though she guessed that he could not see her expression.

“No,” she admitted, “but just the Joffrey part. I don’t mind the others.”

“The First Lady, too?” She could not really see him in the dark, but she sensed that his eyebrows rose in response to that. She let the laugh escape her before she thought to stifle it.

“No, Joffrey and Cersei are not my ideal summer guests.”

She heard a rumbling in his chest, and she knew that was as close to laughter as he got most times. She wondered what his chest felt like when he laughed, if she could feel it reverberate throughout his body. She shook her head in an effort to stop thinking of such things.

“Just so you know,” she began, feeling nervous at the topic she was about to broach, “my parents still don’t know.”

She looked to him, walking next to her on her left, his scarred side hidden from her now.

“About why I broke up with Joffrey, I mean,” she clarified, “or that you helped me.”

Sandor nodded at her, though he made no attempts to converse on the subject.

“Neither do Bran, Arya, Rickon, or Theon,” she continued to speak even as she stopped walking. She grabbed his forearm so he would stop walking too, so he would just look at her. “And I don’t want them to know.”

His eyes found hers. Sansa saw a flash of something, but she was unsure what. She knew what she wanted to see, and she knew she had drank enough that she probably would not be able to interpret it properly this night.

“I know you can keep a secret,” she said, trying to fight the urge to cry. “I know you’ve kept many of mine. I want that, what happened back then, to remain private.”

His eyes searched hers, as though he were trying to detect a lie, a skill he had claimed to possess many times in the past. It took her two years to realize that she could trust him, but she would not make that mistake this summer. He would never hurt her, she knew, and she also knew that he would never betray her.

“Your secret's safe with me,” he grumbled. “Has been for the past three years.”

He continued along the path in the woods without her, and Sansa watched him go. She watched him walk away briefly before using a fast pace to regain her spot next to him, this time on his left, so he could not hide his scars from her.

They emerged from the tree line, the main house probably a hundred yards from where they were, the lights of the house illuminating them so she could actually see more than his silhouette. Now that they were actually talking, albeit limitedly, she thought that a three-hundred feet was not enough.

“You know,” she said quietly, “I never thanked you.”

She saw his head turn slightly out of the corner of her eye, and she knew that he had heard her.

“For what?” he said.

“For helping me,” she said, quiet in her shame. She had been too weak to help herself, so reliant on him to intervene when Joffrey hit her or spoke to her cruelly or played his games with her.

“You don’t need to thank me for that, little bird,” he rasped. Despite being tall for a woman, Sansa felt so small next to him, talking to him about her humiliation at the hands of her ex-boyfriend.

“I do,” she insisted. She looked up at him. He was watching the grass as marched towards the lights of the house.

“No,” he stated firmly, “and stop bringing it up. Enjoy this summer without bringing up bad memories.”

She swallowed. She did not want to spend the summer thinking about Joffrey. She wanted to spend the summer having fun. A part of her wanted Sandor to be there with her for it. _What does he even do for fun?_ she thought briefly, getting ahead of herself as she imagined a summer in the Hamptons spent with him. Of course, knowing him, he would probably loathe the luxury of the Hamptons. For all she knew, he cared even less about spending time with her.

She looked at the bottle of scotch in his hand. _Maybe it’s time for a change of subject_.

“Did you grab the scotch from the cabinet or cellar?” she asked. The house was maybe fifty paces from where they were, and she desperately wanted to prolong their time together. The knots in her stomach were still there, but she could feel butterflies too and a tingling in her face that was more than just a champagne buzz.

“Cellar.”

 _Good_. She suppressed the smile that wanted to form. They would need to change their direction, and that meant more time walking, and that meant more time talking, and more time before they went their separate ways.

“Alright,” she said, grabbing his upper-arm and crossing into his path. He nearly walked into her because he had looked at her hand.

“We’ll have to go this way,” she explained, pointing to the cellar door at the far end of the back wall.

He looked to where her hand directed. “You’re going to put it _back_ in the cellar?”

She nodded, flashing what she hoped was a devilish grin. “Robb and Theon have up a place where we could hide the liquor we opened but couldn’t finish. That way we could go back and finish it later and not worry about getting caught.”

“And Governor Stark and your mom never notice?”

“Never,” she shook her while still smiling in pride at her rebelliousness. She so rarely misbehaved that it felt like a badge of honor when she pushed the boundary, however slight that push was. “Or at least, they never said anything.”

“Sansa Stark, a secret wild child.” She sensed she was blushing again at his teasing, and this time she understood why.

“I am _not_ a wild child,” she said through a grin as she opened the door to the liquor cellar. She could see dim lights on. _Robb_ _probably forgot to turn the lights off_ , she thought, trying to imagine how Robb and Sandor interacted when they went through the shelves together.

“Stealing liquor, hoarding stolen goods, drinking underage,” he said as she led him down the stairs, after he had shut the door behind them. She imagined that he was raising his good eyebrow as he teased her.

“I’m of age in Europe. And _where_ are you from again? Oh, that’s right. Scotland. Did you wait until you were of age to drink?”

Once she reached the bottom of the stairs, she turned to gauge his reaction to her flirtations. She had always been so good at this when she was younger, but she had never tried her charms on a man, a real man, before. Sandor looked amused, and she could tell that a grin was hidden somewhere in his expression. He met her eyes and she could sense that he did not want to stop talking to her, or at least hoped that was what she saw.

“This way,” she gestured with her head. She continued to lead him through the liquor cellar, and realized with a strange pride that she enjoyed being the one in control. When she was younger, he had always seemed older, and larger, and so angry all the time. He was always in control, even when Joffrey thought _he_ was the one in control.

“I have to admit,” he began, “with the way everyone talks about you Starks, I’m surprised you have this much wine and scotch hidden in the basement.”

She smiled. “Starks are Scottish, Tullys are Irish.” His bellow filled the cellar, and she felt her stomach somersault at the idea that she caused Sandor Clegane to belly-laugh.

“Here,” she said, showing Sandor the lone shelf around a far corner of the cold room. Robb and Theon had chosen the location since it could not be seen from either set of stairs. Her mother and father would never see the stockpile unless they looked for it. She saw an almost empty bottle of Jack Daniels sitting there. _Arya probably didn’t turn the lights off._ _Typical_.

Sandor reached past her to place his scotch on the hidden shelf, his left arm grazing her right one as he stretched across the space. She felt as though time slowed. She watched as the muscles of one arm extended and the muscles in the other flexed as he braced against the stone wall of the cellar. She took a breath and was immediately surrounded by his scent. Joffrey practically bathed himself in cologne, and teenage Sansa had mistaken that for hygiene and propriety. Sandor did not smell like cologne or shampoo or anything so annoyingly sanitary: whiskey, wood smoke, and something else, something that was so singularly him.

He leaned back and caught her eye as he did. Even though she focused on his face, she saw his eye dance over her figure, from her chest to her stomach to her hips then her legs. She suddenly felt grateful for changing into her shorts before going to the clearing—she had always received compliments on her legs ever since her growth spurt—though she wished that she had chosen something more flattering than her Harvard shirt. Yet despite that gratefulness, she felt like a deer in the headlights as he looked at her.

She always felt so exposed when he looked at her, ever since she was a doe-eyed fourteen-year-old head-over-heels in puppy love with an abusive sociopath. Sandor always seemed to see everything as it really was: he had pegged Joffrey for a bastard early on, had warned her when Joff was looking to hurt instead of harm, had intervened countless times when Joff had actually become violent. She owed Sandor more than she could possibly ever offer him, and he refused her thank yous. Now he was looking at her as though she were naked. She felt more vulnerable in front of him at that moment in the cellar than any of the times he had picked her up when she was bruised and crying on the bathroom floor at Joffrey’s apartment. Maybe she felt that way because she had grown from that girl who could not defend herself. Maybe she did because this feeling, low in her belly from making eye contact with him, was entirely different than the feels she had when Joffrey had first charmed with her or when guys hit on her at parties in Cambridge. This was a new feeling for her, and it felt better than it did with Joffrey or any of those nameless, faceless guys.

Sansa shifted while her thoughts wandered. Sandor took a few steps back from her, turning his head as he did. _No, don't_. She realized that he was now hiding behind his hair, hiding from her. _Please, don't_. She did not know what she did wrong, what she could have done to ruin the moment, but she wanted that look to return, the one that was just in his eyes as he looked her over.

“Sandor,” she said quietly, not having any idea how she could get the situation back to what she wanted it to be.

“We best get back upstairs,” he rasped, his head still turned. “Bet you have a long day planned tomorrow, it being your last summer and all.”

Despairing at the turn the night took, she merely nodded, not knowing how to handle him anymore.

He started walking towards the other set of stairs, the steps that would lead them to her mother’s beloved kitchen before they would go their separate ways.

She did not know what she had imagined happening when they left the fire, but ending the night like this did not seem fair to her. She wanted to thank him, and he had rejected it. She wanted to talk to him, which she supposed she accomplished, but she was not ready for her evening with him to end. Sansa wanted to smell him again, to sit with him once more, to know if his hands felt as good as they did her fantasies.

“Are you coming?”

She looked to him, at the base of the stairs now, staring at her quizzically. Even though he was not twenty-feet from where she stood, he seemed so far away from her.

She nodded, absently. She followed his suit, making her way to the stairs to put an end to the evening, to say goodnight to him, to possibly meet him again once she’d fallen asleep.

Only a few steps behind him on the stairs, Sansa could hear noises coming from the kitchen as they inched closer to the door. She realized that she could hear because the door was partially open—another bit of Arya absentmindedness, most like. As she prepared herself for whomever they were about to face—most likely Robb and Jeyne celebrating that Theon was probably asleep, or maybe Arya on one of her midnight snack runs—Sandor’s hand grabbed her upper-arm suddenly. She felt another thrill go through her as she processed the unexpected contact.

“Wha—” she began to say before she looked at him and saw he had a finger to his lips. She furrowed her brow at his strange behavior. His head shifted carefully, subtly, as he peered through the cracked open door at a distance. Following his gaze, Sansa realized that the noises were not coming from her siblings, or even a Stark at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...who do you think it is?


	8. EDDARD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit shorter than the last few chapters, but I believe me when I tell you that it does move the plot along.
> 
> Again, this chapter takes place right after the previous chapter, so a re-read may not be a bad idea.

**June 2013 – The Hamptons**

Ned’s head felt ready to split open. He had only drank one scotch with Robert in the study and had indulged in one more during dinner, and the bit of cognac that he had enjoyed in the study with the First Family had never given him a headache before, yet somehow he awoke from his sleep with his head pounding. He did not want to admit that his sister’s voice was in the back of his mind when he awoke, not wanting to tell Catelyn of the dysfunction of the extended Stark family; he had kept that secret for far too long to acknowledge any of it now. Deciding to leave his wife to her book, Ned descended the winding staircase to find something to eat and drink some water to fight off the pain in his head.

Once he reached the foyer, Ned saw a light coming from the kitchen archway. _I thought they would still be by the fire_. Bright ceiling lights blinded him as he walked into the kitchen, and he had to wait for a moment for his eyes to adjust from the dark hallways of Summerfalls.

Blonde hair greeted him once he regained his sight, and Ned felt annoyance and stress creep into him at the thought of having to spend time in this room that was always his wife’s sanctuary. _Of course, exactly what I need right now_.

The woman sat high upon a stool next to the peninsula. Despite wearing her bedclothes, she still managed to look picture perfect: clad in a crimson robe lined with gold thread—the colors she had always claimed best reflected the lioness within, she used to say—with her hair framing her face rather than resting in a bun. She held a spoon in her hand and eyed the white bowl that was in front her, with what looked to be a mixture of yogurt, berries, and nuts. He spotted a glass of water next to the bowl, and Ned wondered if this midnight activity was how the First Lady hoped to prevent any headaches tomorrow.

“I suppose you struggled to fall asleep,” she stated rather than asked. It was just one of her many qualities that grated on Ned. However, Ned shook his head as he resumed to his journey.

“Neither could you,” Ned responded, knowing better than to ask Cersei Lannister a question. He had been bitten enough times to make that mistake again.

After grabbing a glass from a cupboard, he went to the water dispenser on the door of the fridge. He hoped that water might be all he needed from this visit, since Cersei Lannister-Baratheon being present would likely make his headache worsen.

He turned to look at the woman and noted that she was not looking at him, nor was she eating her food. He watched her for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. Ned had avoided conversations with Cersei for years, had been careful to never be alone with her, yet now he was trapped, though he suspected he was not like the prey that she was used to hunting. Starks could be wolfish, while Lannisters were merely cats with claws. _Maybe that’s why we’ve never been able to get along_.

“Has my husband spoken to you yet?” she said, eyes still lowered to her food. Ned wondered if she though that looking at the bowl was the same as eating from it.

Ned took another a drink from his glass before answering, “Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?” She looked up at him now, eyebrow raised. That was another thing she did that Ned disliked. “What could that possibly mean?”

Her sneer chafed him, in a way that only she was capable of doing.

“It means what it sounds like,” he bit back.

“Expertly evading questions,” she said derisively, “Perhaps there’s more of a politician in you than I thought.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means _exactly_ what it sounds like,” Cersei enunciated each word as she spoke.

Hoping that a battle of the wills was reaching its peak, Ned decided to find something to eat rather than be left with only his water as an excuse for being in the kitchen. He went to the pantry along the wall, opened it, and picked a box of cereal. He sensed that his previous headache had subsided, but there was a new one forming, just like a storm over the ocean. He had seen enough of them at Storm’s End, but no storm could match up to Cersei.

“Will you accept?” she asked, now looking at her glass of water instead of Ned. He poured his cereal into a clean bowl as she spoke.

 _I can’t talk about this with her_. Ned just stared blankly at Cersei.

“Who am I kidding?” Cersei started laughing vindictively, as Ned walked to the fridge with his bowl. “Of course, you’ll say yes. You’re Eddard Stark of the revered Stark family. Four-hundred years old and proud, withstanding every winter and witch trial the northeast had to offer. You’ve probably dreamed of this since you were boy.”

“So says the Lannister of Casterly Rock, California,” Ned said, feeling vile from sinking to her level as he poured milk onto his bowl of Raisin Bran. “So says Tywin’s daughter.” _Besides, Brandon was meant to be the heir, not me. She must have forgotten that part._

“My father is worth twenty of you.”

Ned remained silent at her continued assault. _And I thought it was just the wine at dinner_. He fed himself the first bite of his bowl, and felt relieved at the idea of food in his stomach.

“Tread carefully, Cersei,” he said carefully after swallowing his food. It was Ned’s turn to enunciate at his enemy. Though Ned had never been good at the nuances of politics, preferring bluntness to playing a game, he had grown somewhat adept at dealing with this woman in the thirty years since he first met her.

Cersei furrowed her brow in an attempt at innocence, and that trait did not come easily to her.

“What? You don’t wish to walk down memory lane? I thought that was what every Stark-Baratheon gathering was about.”

Ned drank from his water glass again, hoping to extend his response-time. As usual, Cersei opened her mouth again before he had the chance to fight back, as was her way.

“It warms my heart how you and my dear husband speak of your beloved sister as though she were his late _wife.”_ Cersei grabbed her water once she had finished spewing her venom. She drank deeply from the glass but kept her eyes on Ned the entire time.

“Cersei, stop,” he warned, quietly, as was his way, which was not a warning that she often heeded.

“Stop what?” Cersei said in another attempt at virtue. “I thought you enjoyed memory lane. I, for one, love honoring your sister’s _unparalleled_ beauty with my words, so what is stopping you right now?”

“I know Rhaegar hurt you, but that does not give you the right to speak ill of my sister.”

“I think it gives me every right,” she said calmly, disturbingly so.

“He did not leave you for her,” Ned argued.

“No, but the fact that you have _this_ place, _these_ laurels, and such domestic _bliss_ with your brother’s sloppy seconds does not make me feel pleased with myself.” Cersei’s emphasis often sounded like toxins rather than powerful rhetoric. Ned was unsure if she was aware of that. She seemed to be so often blinded by her belief in her own superiority that he was certain that she lacked self-awareness. Such abstract thinking seemed to be lost to the Lannisters that he had had the pleasure of meeting. _Not Tywin though. He would know better than to speak of such things with an enemy_.

“My wife has nothing to do with why you and your family are here this summer.”

“Doesn’t it?” Cersei said in a serious tone, glass of water in her hand. “She is a southern belle flourishing in the urban waste and rural decay of New York. You are proven moderate. You have been the governor of this state for almost twenty years. You have the highest approval ratings of any governor in the country. You have bipartisan appeal. You could be the easiest confirmation in history. Then again, everyone thought that Rockefeller’s would be easy too.”

Ned thought over her words, and wondered what point she hoped to make in the next few minutes.

“I find it ironic,” Cersei said, her eyes looking across the peninsula and island of the kitchen without acknowledging Ned, “that your wife managed to adjust to this life, this region so well while I made the seemingly easy jump from California to Florida to Washington and managed to lose so much.”

Cersei put the spoon in the bowl and slowly stirred the berries and nuts into the yogurt, absently.

“I have a husband whom I hate, his two brothers who cut me down every chance that they get, three children who disappoint me. Not to mention, the ghost of a woman who never cared for my husband in our marriage bed.”

Ned shifted his position.

“Does Brandon haunt your marriage bed?” she asked, her voice suddenly fragile, vulnerable in a way that he had only ever seen Cersei once before, almost thirty years ago, at a funeral that left both of them devastated. “Do you ever panic that Catelyn thinks of him when you’re together? Or do you know she does?”

“I can tell you,” Ned began, softly, not wanting the discussion to veer back into veiled threats, “that Robert did care for you when you got married. I know the reason why you got married in the first place, and I know it was not romantic or the storybook that you thought you deserved, but I do know that he cared for you. For a time.”

She looked at him, her green eyes looking strange for her, and all of the traits that she usually could not pull off were there, clear as day for Ned to see.

“For a time,” Cersei repeated, “but it was never love, was it?”

Cersei broke their eye contact and once again looked at the bowl in front of her, continuing to slowly stir the mixture.

Ned did not know how to respond. He could count on one hand the number of lies he had told in his entire life. Oddly, he had never lied to Cersei, and for some reason, he did not want to now.

“Who exactly haunts you?” Her voice interrupted his thoughts. “Ashara? Your brother? Your sister? Or is it someone else?”

Cersei’s voice gradually became more and more dangerous, the vulnerability that was there moments before completely absent now. Ned pictured Cersei fighting off any emotion on her part, any sign of weakness, in her own imagination, saw her taking a club and beating out any frailty within herself. Of course, the Cersei sitting in front of him would never condescend to fight her own battles with a club. She preferred words as her weapon, among other things.

“The easiest confirmation in history,” she repeated. “There are no scandals to your name or red on your ledger. Your late wife’s suicide is not even a skeleton in the closet like it is for two other congressmen. No, you were honest about _that_. Starks are always honest.” She paused. “Except when they are not.”

Ned’s grey eyes flicked to Cersei’s green ones. He knew the words that she left unspoken.

“You tell people and your chance at becoming President one day go up in smoke.”

Cersei swallowed her latest gulp of water before turning to look at him, her expression terrifyingly blank. She had long since mastered how to school her expressions to show nothing.

“Would it?” Her voice taunted him. “I was grieving when it first started, barely in control of my own actions, so bereft I was.”

“It wasn’t a Lannister they buried that day.”

“History belongs to the victors, Governor Stark,” Cersei began, nearly as high and mighty as the horse she rode in on, “and I will be the victor in this story.”

"You think being the First Lady gives you enough experience to become the President someday?”

“I think I have more experience in Washington than you do,” she said stoically, clearly proud of her experience.

“Executive experience always wins out over dirty-handed Washington tricks,” Ned chided her. “You should know that if you ever plan on running a campaign yourself.”

“Perhaps,” Cersei falsely conceded, as was her way, though Ned thought he saw a twinkle in her eye, “but if Robert’s adultery is ever revealed, then I will be looked at as a Jackie, not a Marilyn. That alone will give me enough goodwill to win an election.”

“Tell that to Hillary,” Ned rolled his eyes. “You want to be a Jackie Kennedy yet you are willing to reveal a drunken mistake from twenty-six years ago that will hurt your husband’s—your meal ticket’s—chances at easy Vice President confirmation? You’re as short-sighted as you are impulsive.”

“Do you really want to point fingers about impulsiveness, Mr. _Stark_?” Cersei said, her anger carefully hidden under her façade. “Brandon Stark was reportedly the one who started that firefight on a routine patrol. Lyanna was the one who repeatedly fucked a married man, although that was not reported. You made a drunken pass at a vulnerable woman at a funeral. That too is still unknown. No press trying to dig up that story because they still have no clue that anything even happened. For now.”

“Cersei, you don’t control history until you’ve already made it into the books,” Ned said fiercely, spooning the last bit of his cereal into his mouth.

“Lannisters are always in control. The story will be mine eventually.”

“You are not your father, as much as you wish you were.” Ned did not dare look at the woman after he said that, aware that his words would be enough to wound her. She had shared enough of herself with him in the weeks following his brother’s funeral that he knew where her Achilles heel was.

Silence filled the kitchen for a moment. Ned thought he heard a slight noise from the stairwell to the wine cellar. _Wind_.

“Have you at least told him you’ll do it,” Cersei said, resigned now. Ned felt like he may have made a misstep with his comment about her father.

“I asked him to give me the summer,” Ned said. “I expect he’ll give me a few weeks.”

“Does your family know?”

“My family is not your concern.”

Cersei crossed her arms over her chest.

“You know, there once was a time when our families were supposed to be joined,” she said, feigning confusions as she brought up three-year-old memories. “Your family would have become my family.”

Ned nodded quickly, uncomfortable that Sansa was now the topic of conversation.

“But Sansa and Joffrey broke up,” he said quickly, “and there are no future plans for Baratheons or Starks to intermarry.”

“Yet there had been two previous plans for a match between the two,” she continued. “Old northeastern money, among the oldest in the country, and a political dynasty from Florida that dates back to the Revolution, originally supposed to be united by my husband and your sister.”

“We buried Lyanna over twenty years ago,” Ned began, ready to seize control from the blonde woman in front of him. “You had already married Robert when she died. Joffrey had already been born. Robert did not have an affair with her, and you were not a consolation prize. So leave her out of this.”

The woman sighed dramatically. “In some ways, I completely understand your loyalty to your family. It is no less than the loyalty I feel for mine. Remember _that_ when you tell your family of your decision. Before you move them all to Number One Observatory Circle.”

Cersei slid off of the stool she had been sitting on since Ned entered the room with a grace that surprised him considering the amount of alcohol she had ingested since her arrival on the estate. She turned to the peninsula counter and delicately grasped the bowl.

“I trust that the maids will take this from my room tomorrow,” she once again stated rather than asked. Ned felt like he had just heard nails on a chalkboard. “I do hope you sleep well, Mr. Stark,” she said as she disappeared past the archway to the main hall.

Alone in the kitchen now, Ned’s headache returned to him in Cersei’s wake. He hoped that that sleep may be the answer to his problem, but he more and more wondered if it was stress that was weighing on his mind, and that stress would not leave him until summer was over.


	9. SANDOR

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PREVIOUSLY ON _A GAME OF THRONES AND A HOUSE OF CARDS_
> 
> After leaving the other Starks behind at the fire in the woods, Sansa and Sandor overheard a conversation between Ned and Cersei in the kitchen, which featured a great deal of intimations regarding family secrets.

 

**June 2013 - The Hamptons**

 

Sandor listened for a moment, to make sure that the kitchen was empty now. His hand gripped the doorknob poorly, his palm sweaty for the first time in years. He could not say why he had felt the need to keep his and Sansa’s presence secret in the first place, but he knew that he did not want to be discovered alone with the girl by the mother of her ex-boyfriend, and he wanted even less to make their presence known after her father waltzed in. Sandor barely knew Ned Stark from Adam, but he imagined that most fathers would not like their twenty-year-old daughters alone in the dark with scarred bodyguards.

But fuck if he knew that the noble Governor Stark and the holier-than-thou Cersei Lannister would talk about what they did. He had watched Cersei almost ten years now, and he found it laughable that she cast herself as the victim in her marriage—as though she had a leg to stand on when it came to the moral high ground in that marriage, though the men she fucked were far fewer than the skirts that the President chased. In a million years, he would never have guessed that dear old Ned could have gotten mixed up in that mess, and if he still had a heart, he would feel more than a pang of sympathy for Sansa having to learn of it.

Sandor grabbed the doorknob, twisting it as he pushed into the kitchen. He could smell Sansa—her shampoo, her perfume, something lemon-like that she would choose—in the cramped corridor, and he did not want to be in such close quarters with her for any longer. He usually knew how to act around women, knew when to stay silent, knew what boundaries should never be crossed, but he never felt in control when he was with Sansa, even back when she was a love-struck teenager who pissed him off like no one else. Only she grew up, grew out of the love-struck teenager into someone who angered him even more. He had not expected her to look like she did tonight, all long legs in those short shorts and shiny, lemon-smelling ginger hair—and the Scot in him had a weakness for redheads. Two years since she graduated from that starchy prep school, and he could not lie to himself that he had been looking forward to seeing her, though he did not realize it until he saw her at dinner, sitting all prim and proper like she had probably been taught to do since she could walk, avoiding eye contact with him, until Joffrey pulled that “I’m the President’s son” bullshit, _again_. He knew in that moment she remembered all too well everything, _everything_ that Joffrey put her through, every stunt he pulled just so he could feel like a man, and _that_ terrified Sandor because he knew it meant that she remembered everything he did and said, all to make him feel like more of a man instead of a glorified bodyguard to one of the worst cunts he had ever met. Fuck him if he knew that walking alone in the woods with her would be nerve-wracking—he was not a man who got nervous around women, just readied himself for rejection or resignation when it came to a quick, drunken fuck, on the off chance that a woman invited him home with her—but being so close to her at the top of the stairs was even worse.

The kitchen remained silent, even as they crept into it. Glancing around, he saw that Father Stark had left his dishes on the counter rather than put them in the sink, and he spotted an uncorked bottle of red wine on the kitchen counter. _Cersei_. He had rolled his eyes at seeing her quickly push it away from her when she heard Ned Stark’s steps approaching, and he could not stop himself from doing so again.

He spotted Sansa stepping to stand next to him out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look at her, to get an idea of what to do next. He had sensed that he made her nervous when he looked her up and down in the liquor cellar, and he stupidly thought she had leaned into him when he reached past her, but that shiver was unmistakable, and he would rather scare her off when her gratitude told him that she did not think poorly of him, despite the scars that had scared her for years.

Looking at her now, her cheeks were flushed. When her eyes flicked to his, Sandor thought he saw uncertainty in her—the kind he had not seen since the first time the girl had faced Cersei’s vitriol at that fucked up Thanksgiving in Florida back in ‘08.

“You okay?” he rasped, and he found himself once again hating the sound of his voice and his uselessness at handling these types of things. _What the fuck do I say to a girl who heard her father and the mother of her ex-boyfriend discuss memories of a fling from a hundred years ago?_ He had wanted to check on her, make her feel comforted. _You should know better, you ugly fuck_. Men like him never got to be that for girls like Sansa Stark.

She quickly nodded in response. He knew immediately that she was lying. She was either too quick or too slow to respond when she lied.

Sandor watched her, closely, knowing she would start to squirm under his gaze. Her eyes shifted around the kitchen before settling on him. “I thought—I thought it would be Arya,” she stuttered. “In the kitchen, I mean.”

He nodded, out of instinct rather than any meditated thought.

“Probably not a conversation that you expected to overhear,” he said stupidly, at a loss for the words she would probably want to hear. _What fucked up conversations does someone like her_ want _to overhear?_ He wanted to shoot himself in the foot for being such an idiot.

She shook her head rapidly. Her fair skin looked especially pale despite the warm light of the kitchen.

“You know how she is,” he tried to gently remind her, but he knew his voice was anything but gentle, and could only imagine how ugly his face looked when he tried to be kind. “All growl, no bite.”

Sansa nodded again, although absent-mindedly this time. _Fuck_. He sighed. She seemed to snap back to the present at his action.

“Is—is everything—are you already settled in the guest house?” she asked. She looked almost fearful, though he knew intimately what she looked like when she was afraid.

“Yes,” he said quickly. Her face seemed to fall even more, and he knew that his curt response was not what she needed to hear.

“I guess—well—you’ll probably want to go to bed?”

Sandor was sure he heard a question in her response, and if her stuttering had not given her nervousness away, then the beet-red that colored her face in that moment surely did. _Of course, the little bird doesn’t want to be alone_. He was quiet for a moment, glancing around the room to avoid leering at her and then causing her shrink away from him again.

“Do you drink red?” he said, nodding to the bottle on the corner of the kitchen counter.

He saw some normalcy return to her face at his question, and he hoped that he would be able to breakthrough to her, to stop whatever was spinning in her head at the moment from spinning. She nodded at him in response, and he walked over to the counter to grab the bottle. She smiled weakly at him, though he could tell that there was honesty in her reaction rather than falsehood. He turned to the sliding glass doors that would lead to dining table at which the Starks, Baratheons, and Lannisters had sat not seven hours ago. He cringed thinking on how Joffrey bragged about Margaery Tyrell and winning his stupid student government election, as if it meant anything. _That Tyrell cock-tease did all the work for him anyway_.

“Wait,” she said gently, and he felt himself tense at the idea that she had changed her mind and would rather go to bed than go with him. She darted to the fridge, her hip narrowly missing the corner of the island. Sandor watched as she opened the door and stuck her head in, heard her cluttering about the appliance, wondered what she could possibly be doing. He became distracted by how high her shorts had ridden up her legs.

Sandor Clegane knew that he was not a creep, and certainly not a sex offender waiting to take advantage of young girls, but he could not help the thoughts that entered his mind as he watched her searching the refrigerator. He imagined her in front of him, in any manner of scenarios, and desperately wanted to kiss her, to nibble her, to gently bite her arse that he was sure was as soft as the rest of her, while she was bent over and at his mercy. He could not pinpoint the exact moment when he began to wonder if his frustrations with her came from his desire for her, but he desperately hoped that it was her kindness, her intelligence, her survival instincts that made him want her in the first place, and not anything that would make him feel like a dirty old man. Of course, a thirty-three-year-old man imagining himself licking the cunt of the twenty-year-old girl in front of him definitely made him feel like one.

Her upper-body returned to his sights, and he suddenly felt ashamed of his thoughts, as though she knew what he was thinking about, knew she was at the center of his thoughts and had been for some time now. She stepped away from the refrigerator, closing the door carefully and in her hands was a bag of cut cheese and apples. He raised his eyebrow at her once she looked at him as she walked towards him at the sliding door.

“What?” she said in a mix of defensiveness and humor. “Jeyne and I always have apple and cheese ready for wine nights.”

Sandor had to fight the smirk that he felt forming on the corners of his mouth, but he did not stop his eyebrow on the good side of his face from raising in response. Sansa always seemed to be amused at that expression. “You have cheese ready to go in case you decide to get sloshed?”

She smirked back at him, in the guilty-yet-proud manner that he wondered if only she was capable of expressing. She nodded at him. “Where to?”

“Hundreds of feet of beachfront, and you’re asking me where to go?”

She laughed lightly at him, and Sandor recognized that her laugh—genuine, gentle, honest, kind and not mocking in the least—may have been the thing that made him realize that she was more than just a spoiled rich bitch.

“Well, let’s go,” she said, a smile still making her face light up despite the strangeness that they had experienced and overheard from behind the door. A _ll she needs is to be distracted. Needs someone to keep her mind off of what happened_. His only problem was that he wanted to distract her in other ways than drinking on a beach.

He slide the door open and walked through it before turning around to make sure Sansa made it through without tripping—the girl had always been graceful, and Sandor was almost certain that he had never seen her trip over anything, even when intoxicated, but the gentleman in him, hidden deep inside, held out his hand to help her through. He did not miss the blush that crept into her cheeks when he did. When he let go of her hand, he felt the air between them change, and struggled to sense if it was for better or for worse.

“How long have you worked with the First Family?” she asked as they made their way across the lawn to the beach.

“I’m Secret Service,” he said bluntly, and he cringed realizing that he voice was harsher than he meant it to be. His voice was always harsher than he meant it to be.

“I know that,” she said calmly, “but I also know you were only entered the Secret Service once Robert Baratheon was elected.”

“I came to this country in 2005, and Tywin Lannister hired me to be Cersei’s bodyguard a few months later.”

“Tywin Lannister?” she said puzzled. _Fuck_. That was probably information he should kept private rather than just blurt out, to a Stark of all people, and the Stark who was his biggest weakness, no less. “But Cersei was the wife of a senator in 2005. Why was her father employing security for her?”

Sandor had watched the little bird for long enough to know that her questions were out of curiosity and confusion rather than digging for information, but years of training and habit meant that he could not stop the sense of danger he felt at the idea of answering such questions.

“It’s a long story,” he said to deflect, but at least it was not a lie. He hated liars, and he would not tolerate dishonesty in himself. Deflection was acceptable, but fiction was not.

“We have half a bottle of wine and some very fine cheese,” Sansa said. “Plus, I’ve already had quite a bit white wine tonight, so I better drink this slowly, and you know that I will not be happy if you drink more than your share of that bottle. We have time for a long story.”

He could not help but grin and chuckle at her wit and her arguments. He could not see her very well in the dark of night as they headed away from their primary source of light, but he could imagine her speaking with a twinkle in her eye, raising either one of her eyebrows—either one, since both of them were perfect—to mimic his use of the expression. She had always been good at conversation, and at first it annoyed him, until he realized that she was trying to be polite, which then enraged him. He became softer towards her eventually, but it was through watching Margaery Tyrell that he realized just how genuine Sansa was in comparison to most people he came across as a protector of the First Family.

“Starks and Lannisters are the two wealthiest families in the world,” he began to explain. “Married to a senator or not, fathers worry about their daughters. When you can afford a former member of the British Armed Forces, why not?”

He could faintly see the outline of her now that his eyes have adjusted to the dark. He could see that she had nodded in response to him.

“You know, _I_ don’t have a bodyguard,” she said.

“You’re the daughter of the Governor of New York, and you’re a Stark,” he said, “and you go to the same fucking university every of other Stark has gone. I’m sure everyone would fall all over themselves to protect you.”

He could see her outline look down as they transitioned from the grass to the sand. _Shit_.

“I didn’t—”

“Sandor, don’t worry about it,” she said, quickly in a tone completely unique to her. He recognized this tone, had heard it enough when she was with Joffrey. He felt a pang of anger with himself at the idea that she felt the need to appease him just as she had with Joffrey.

They were silent now, and Sandor could easily sense the mixed feelings within himself at the idea of sitting on a beach with this girl, this almost-grown woman, while drinking wine. He had felt it before, walking through the trees with her, and worrying that despite the fact that he desperately wanted to be alone with her, he had no idea what to actually do with himself when he was in fact alone with her.

He brought the wine bottle to his lips, to take a deep drink in hopes of drowning himself in his favorite escape. Wine, whisky, or women, each had its appeal, and none truly gave him the satisfaction he craved, that he knew men like him never received.

“Don’t hog that,” he heard her say. “We’re sharing that bottle, and I want my half.”

“Best get a move on.”

He heard her exhale a laugh. He felt some tension go out of his body now that he could tell she was in a lighter mood.

“Then gimme.” He could see her hand reaching out for the bottle and he happily passed it over to her. She glanced at the bottle for a moment, looking somewhat unamused and puzzled, before taking a delicate sip.

He chose his words carefully for this next bit. “Why do you want to know how long I’ve worked for them?”

She paused. He could practically hear her shift her upper body in nervousness while they slowed their pace.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said quickly. He could see her silhouette fidget slightly with the wine bottle. “You didn’t work for them then.”

“When?”

“Back then.”

“Back when?”

“Twenty-six years ago.”

 _Fuck_. “What do you mean?” He was not lying when he asked questions, just clarifying.

“He—he said ‘twenty-six years ago’,” Sansa spoke quietly. She looked down to the sand, stopping as she did. Sandor followed her lead and stood awkwardly, hulking mass that he was, before they settled into the sand.

“My mom and dad got married twenty-six years ago,” she said, crossing her legs, flashing even more of her thighs. He had to force himself to look away for fear of ogling at her legs, as he stretched his legs out in front of him, stared at the ocean in front of him. He pictured going for a midnight swim with Sansa, found himself wondering what type of bathing suit she preferred, and then wondered if she would ever dare skinny-dip with him, right here, on the same estate of her ancestors. Recognizing the danger of his thoughts, he turned to give her his attention once more, to push all unseemly thoughts of what he has wanted to do for a while now out of his mind. Seeing her in front of him now, Sandor realized how glassy her eyes actually looked when they reflected despite the darkness. “Next month is their twenty-six wedding anniversary.”

“I wouldn’t think too much on it, little bird,” he tried to sound apathetic, tried to absently grab the wine bottle from her. He met no resistance from her, and he hoped that maybe she would move on. “You know she uses empty threats all the time.”

He could see Sansa nod faintly.

“But she wasn’t this time.” She was quiet but resolute now, and Sandor felt conflicted. He wanted her to drop the subject, wanted to talk about anything but what they had overheard. Yet he had found years ago that he liked it when she showed her backbone.

“I know Cersei,” she pushed, taking the wine bottle for another sip. “Maybe not as long as you have, but I know her, and that wasn’t an empty threat.”

Sandor licked his lips as she wrapped her lips around the bottle. For the first time that night he realized that they were sharing the bottle, and felt a thrill at the thought of putting his mouth where hers had also been. Despite the cool sea breeze, he realized that his palms were sweaty again, _still_ , not sweating so much since he was ten and had noticed girls for the first time. He looked back at her, was unsettled by how intently she watched him while he had been lost in thought. _Fuck_.

“Sansa, don’t think too much on this,” he said, eagerly reaching for the bottle in hopes that he could taste her on it. “No good comes from digging up a father’s secrets.”

He carefully sipped from the bottle, wanting to savor the moment, imagining his mouth on her, and hers on him.

“I didn’t think my dad had any secrets.”

“Fathers always have secrets,” he spat. “There’s always a moment when you realize they’re not the superhero you thought they were. Did you really think your father was any different?”

Sandor could sense the sudden shift in the air between them, could practically hear her breathing deeply at his comment. _Always so fucking harsh_.

“What did you think they were talking about?” she said sharply, reclaiming the bottle as she did. He knew her well enough that it was a god’s honest question, despite the anger in her voice. _Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck_.

He paused to think, of a distraction or some way that he could get out of answering the question, of ever having to tell the girl in front of him that he was almost certain her father had fucked the First Lady, back when she was still a Lannister, certainly before she married his best friend.

“They were talking about him becoming Vice President.”

“Sandor—”

“That _is_ what they talking about, little bird, whether you realize it or not. All the other things she dragged out of the closet are just skeletons that have no real weight.”

“Skeletons still have weight. Maybe not a lot of mass, but everything that goes with them—secrets, scandals, revelations…” As she trailed off, Sandor’s mind wandered to the skeletons in both of their closets: an abusive boyfriend, a drunken night, a pass that he should not have made, the night he saw the injuries for the first time.

“They have weight,” she said softly.

It occurred to Sandor that they were talking in metaphors, talking poetically, which made his stomach jump briefly. He hated poetry, hated metaphors and the lies they told and the fakeness they embodied.

“How big do you think _that_ skeleton might be?” he asked, ready to push her now, really push her.

“Depends,” she said calmly, though he could sense the desolation growing inside of her.

“Depends on what?”

“What were they talking about?”

“This is rid—”

“Stop,” she said sternly. “It is not ridiculous.”

“If you’re so unsure, then tell me how you put together ‘twenty-six years ago’.”

She leaned back momentarily, almost as if he had struck her. Images of her against walls and on floors flashed through his mind, and immediately made him feel ashamed. Leave it to him to be as aggressive with his words as Joffrey was with his hands.

“Brandon Stark,” she said carefully, “my uncle, my dad’s older brother—he—he died twenty-six years ago.”

She drank from the bottle again, and Sandor tried to look anywhere but at her this time. He could not be inundated with more images of what he wanted her to do with that mouth every time her lips touched the mouth of the bottle. He started to shift, feeling an itch on his back and wanting to scratch it. He wanted to reach, to stretch, to do anything to move around and to also rid himself of the discomfort of what Sansa was about to say. He did not need to hear, nor did he want to. The angelic First Lady and the President’s best friend, Elder Stark, Governor of New York, fucked a million years ago. The details were nowhere near as important for him as it was the girl in front of him.

“My parents married July 1987, twenty-six years ago, and they started seeing each other after Brandon’s funeral.”

“You worried your perfect father cheated before he got married?”

His question was greeted by silence. _Ahh_. _Father Stark was an adulterer, and Mother Stark was nearly passed over for Cersei fucking Lannister_.

“Twenty-six years is a long time to be married,” she said, sounding as though she were trying to convince herself as much as him. _Still a romantic_ , he wanted to roll his eyes, but there was that nagging part of him that felt strangely proud of Sansa for keeping faith in that sort of romanticism, even after everything she had seen as Joffrey’s toy. There had been times when he was angry at her for not leaving him, for staying with the cunt after he hit her the first time, but then again, he had to remind himself how long it took him to get away from his cunt of a brother.

“It is,” he nodded, taking the wine back. “And the President and First Lady have been married for over twenty.”

Sansa leaned back from him. He turned away from her to watch the waves, internally kicking himself that he could not keep his fucking mouth shut, and he found himself hiding behind his hair that was falling over his face from the movement. He took a deep drink from the bottle in hopes of washing away what just happened.

“My parents’ marriage and the Baratheons’ marriage are _nothing_ alike.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“But you did anyway,” she said softly. He found the courage, somewhere in a hidden corner inside of him, to steal a glance at her. Her anger made her face red, a very different shade from the rose color of her blushes. Not for the first time, Sandor noticed how fierce she looked when she was mad.

He stayed quiet this time, not wanting to commit any more blunders, and desperately hoping he would not reduce himself to a bumbling liar seeking amends.

“Why are you always so hateful?” she said, her face contorting as she spoke. Silence once again sat between them, separating them, when less than an hour ago this beach walk seemed so full of promise. Her face softened as she stared at the ground, her eyes shifting every now and then but never raising to meet his gaze.

“I told you,” he rasped at her, trying his damnedest not to sound angry but he knew it was almost impossible for him not to sound like a mean old bastard. “I told you when I found you the first time.”

Her eyes jumped up to his, though her expression did not change. She still seemed so soft to him, even though she was still seething. He supposed that reminding her of one of her lowest moments would not make her less angry. That night had been the first time she learned who Joffrey really was, what he could be when no one was there to keep him in line, and Joffrey at boarding school meant that no one but Sandor was keeping an eye on him; the other agents, Meryn fucking Trant and bulbous Boros Blount, never bothered to question the son of the President, as though he were a prince and not the son of a democratically elected official. Joffrey had only told him to “clean up” when he left the apartment. After helping her do just that, he brought her to the boardwalk, hoping that the escape and the abundance of fried food would help her as it helped him as a kid, fried food being as much a comfort to Scots as it was for Americans. She had been quiet, and distant, and hurt, and for the first time that they had known each other, he did not mock her innocence or naïveté or the fact that she was hurting. He had only bought her fries and sat with her in silence after telling her they could leave whenever she wanted. She never responded to him, instead sitting there, staring at basket in front of her. They were silent for an hour before she asked Sandor, “What did I do?”

He had waited before responding, choosing then as the moment to think deeply before he spoke to her, but he told her how his brother had burned him, how his father had done nothing and lied to the hospital when they brought him to the emergency room, and how it had not been the first or last time his brother harmed him, or his sister. Her eyes were glued to him the entire time he told her the story, and she had kept her mouth shut during and after. At the time, he was unsure if she had even understood what he was telling her, if she would be able to figure out what she had done. It only took her another ten minutes before she opened her mouth to tell him that she was ready to leave.

She may not have known it at the time, but he had told her his darkest secret that night, the story that defined him for over twenty years and the reason why he was the way he was, and he would not hesitate to remind her of it now when she wanted to know why he was so hateful.

She just looked at him, eyes boring into him then just as they did five years ago, as though she could see through to his soul, and he wondered if he underestimated her, as he had before, and maybe she did understand him, perhaps she did listen when he told her the story and why he held onto his hate. Her expression was still soft, and he thought he could see compassion replace the anger, as it often did with Sansa.

“Eat some cheese,” she threw the bag that she had fished out of the refrigerator at him, but he could tell that she was not angry with him anymore. “And don’t bring up my parents again tonight.”

He smiled when he looked at the contents of the plastic bag. “Alright, little bird.”

He opened the bag and grabbed a slice of cheese, not because he felt hungry, but because he felt like he needed to do something while she continued to watch him.

“So,” she said, her voice still quiet, and he wondered if it was getting heavier from exhaustion. He suspected that she had not entirely let go the topic of Ned and Cersei’s conversation, but he would forget it if that was what she wanted to do. “You know what I’ve been up to. What about you?”

“To be clear, I only know that you went to Harvard,” he said as he bit into the cheese.

“Still, that’s more than I know about you,” she said as she reached into the bag that now sat between them.

“I’ve just been protecting the son of the President,” he said bitterly.

“Watching Joffrey? That’s all you’ve done in the past three years? All you do with your free time?”

“Well, still work out. Took up kickboxing at this gym in California.”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“What?” he asked, grabbing another slice of cheese, and the wine bottle too.

“Kickboxing?” she said, seeming amused but he sensed there was something else there too, even though he could not place it.

“Aye, kickboxing.”

“Two years in the Golden State, and all you have to show for it is kickboxing, and maybe a slight tan?”

“Aye.”

Sansa giggled in response, and he wondered what was so funny.

“You’re a mystery, Sandor Clegane,” she said, almost under her breath, and Sandor felt another swell of pride in his chest that Sansa Stark, the smartest woman he has ever met, is puzzled by him.

“What about you?” he rasped back.

“What about me?”

“The first night of your ‘wet hot American summer’ and you’re spending it with a Scot, a glorified bodyguard,” he laughed at his self-deprecating humor, ignoring the pain he felt inside that she only thought of him a bodyguard, nothing more.

She just smiled in response before grabbing the wine bottle from his hands, her fingers gliding over his fingers once more, and drank from it. Again, Sandor found his mind wandering to less gentlemanly thoughts as he watched her gulp the last of the bottle.

“I’m spending it getting drunk with my friend,” she said, setting down the empty bottle behind her before she grabbed an apple slice. “Aren’t I?” She sounded less sure now, the question clear in her phrasing and intonation. Sandor swallowed the cheese that was in his mouth and nodded at her.

“Aye, I can be your friend, little bird,” he said, before turning to look out at the water again, wishing he could peel off his clothes right here in front of her and go for a midnight swim, imagining Sansa following suit and stripping out of her clothes to join him. It was not a lie, he could be her friend, but he was unsure how often friends thought of each other naked and moaning, and Sandor wondered what exactly he had gotten himself into by coming out here with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to thank [Jillypups](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Jillypups/pseuds/Jillypups) and her fic [Kiss the Girl](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2576291/chapters/5732498) for this chapter. I really struggled with coming up with Sandor's voice for this chapter, and the way she wrote grouchy, mean, slightly depressed-but-begging-for-love Sandor. She may never know the service she has provided for me, but rereading that fic was an essential step in creating my interpretation of Sandor.
> 
> Also, I would be remiss if I did not thank [SassyEggs](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SassyEggs/pseuds/SassyEggs) for suggesting the idea in the first place. As my go-to person for this fic, her advice has helped to keep me on the path of the righteous and not stray too far into ridiculousness.
> 
> HELP WANTED: In writing this chapter, I realized that I have no idea how to effectively write a Scottish character, especially in regards to colloquialisms. In googling Scottish synonyms for 'idiot', I found thirteen different variations and had no idea which was the most frequently used, despite looking several different websites (I'll admit that I could have refined my search some more). Considering how my two main sources of Scottish-isms are from Rory McCann interviews and Peter Mullan films. If there are any readers out there who have intimate knowledge of Scottish English (with the primary qualifier being that they are Scottish or lived in Scotland), you help and advice would be much appreciated! Let me know in the comments if there are any statements or thoughts that don't match up to Sandor's Scottishness.


	10. CATELYN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After his tense conversation with Cersei in the kitchen, Ned returns to his bedroom to Find Catelyn still reading (a Catelyn POV).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that I have changed the rating from Mature to Explicit due to events in this chapter. I hope it's tasteful. Cheers!
> 
> As always, a re-read might be a good idea. To remember where we are, Chapters 5 and 8 of this fic are probably the best two chapters to re-read before sinking your teeth into this chapter. This chapter takes place concurrently with the previous chapter.

 

**June 2013 - The Hamptons**

Catelyn forced herself to turn away from Jason Bourne’s latest adventures when the door to the bedroom clicked and opened. Her husband entered the room, their sanctuary for this summer of imposition, and she could tell that food did not solve her husband’s troubles, the cloud over his head when he had awoken from his nightmare seemed to only get darker.

Ned had been a light sleeper for as long as Catelyn could remember, waking at any creak in the floorboard when Jon, or Robb, or Arya, or even Rickon tried to sneak down the stairs on their way to a party. He rarely had vivid enough dreams that made him whisper in his sleep, and Catelyn had briefly panicked when she heard him whisper a woman’s name in his sleep before she registered that the name belonged to his sister. She imagined Robert had brought her up during their afternoon drink today, and she had to stop herself from rolling her eyes that Robert was still grieving Lyanna twenty years after her death and thirty years after their relationship ended. The man had cheated on her, slept with countless women since she left him, and continued to seduce women much younger than him, if the gossip from the Senators wives was to be believed.

“Did your headache go away, my love?” she said gently, placing Van Lustbader on her bedside table and sitting up in their bed. He shook his head at her feebly as he slowly, carefully pushed the door closed. She took the moment to look over her husband, to assess him at the beginning of this summer and be able to compare it to the end of the season. He was wearing a crisp white tee over his flannel pants, and Catelyn found herself amused when he reached behind his head to take off his shirt as soon as the door closed. Her husband had grown up in the northeast, his family having settled here in the early 1600s, he was as much a product of the dozen generations of adaptation as he was of hardy stock from the Scottish Highlands, and he could not stand being hot. **_The Starks were made for the cold_ ***, he said to her dozens of times, mostly when she tried to press Jon or Robb or Arya to wear layers before going into the cold autumn breezes or winter winds, and based on how much Jon and he especially seemed to hate summer, it seemed they held quite a bit of disdain for the heat.

He trudged over to his side of the bed, loosening the tie around his hips before he pushed the flannel down his legs, his pinstripe boxers being his preferred sleeping attire. He stood at the edge of the bed for a moment, watching her, his expression pensive but his face an enigma, even to her, even after twenty-five years.

“What is it, Ned?”

His hands went to the band of his boxers, his fingers slipping underneath as he leaned down to remove that article of clothing too. Catelyn shifted from leaning back against the pillow to her knees as she just looked at her husband, a faint smile on her face. _Food didn’t work, now he wants to try me_ , she thought amusedly, though she would never voice these thoughts. She figured out long ago what to say to her husband, and what to never bring out into the open from her mind.

She reached for her husband, grasped the back of his head as she kissed him, moved her hands to where they were needed, having long ago memorized the firmness he liked, and just how to grip him to make him hard, and he knew which parts of her to touch, and in what order, when was the best moment to take off her matronly nightgown so they could feel each other fully, skin against skin, and she had to fight herself when she was bare before him because even in the face of a quarter of a century, hitting fifty this year after five children by him still made her self-conscious. Yet, even in the face of self-consciousness, she still knew instinctively when to lean in, when to lean back, when to open her legs, and when to begin moving her hips.

Ned was faster than usual with his movements, more desperate, which was odd considering Ned was typically a slow and attentive lover when sober; it was only when they both had had a bit too much to drink that the urgency they both felt made them rush to the end instead of savoring the smaller moments. But he still kissed her often, stroked her cheek every now-and-then, and nuzzled her neck frequently, and he watched her as he moved within her, was more responsive to the muffled noises she made. He looked at her as though he was trying to read her, trying to get inside her head while being inside of her. Ned had always been patient and considerate when they made love, but he rarely looked at her as he did in that moment, as though he were trying to reach something within her, as though each thrust brought him closer and each touch brought her closer too. It was a look she had not seen since the early years of their marriage, when they were still trying to navigate their relationship, where the boundaries were, things most couples establish before getting married but the very thing that they had no time to develop.

When they first slept together, on that bourbon-fueled night after Brandon died, she had thought Ned clumsy in bed, nothing like the assuredness his older brother demonstrated whenever Brandon and Catelyn had sex. Except for that stupid night in the heat of a Jackson summer, Brandon was all Catelyn knew of lovemaking, and she had thought him so smooth and so handsome that she had believed that surely no one would ever be able to compare to him. In the aftermath of that night with Ned in May, they had gotten married so quickly that she never had a moment to really think about what had happened, what they were doing, and what they were becoming.

Brandon was supposed to be her husband, having proposed to her nearly two years before he died, but two years to the date after his proposal, three months pregnant and married to his brother. **The shadow of his dead brother still lay between them** * even after they married and spent their wedding night together, and Catelyn knew that even though three years had passed since Ashara committed suicide, Ned was not done grieving for her, and she often suspected that he would never be. _Maybe that is what bound us together_ , she thought, as their shared grief, the bottomless waste where they found themselves, was what prompted the first bourbon the night they conceived Robb.

Ned was not the husband she had thought she would have two years before, or even as a child. Jon was not supposed to be in the picture, and she had never dreamed of being stepmother—she was fairly certain no girl dreamed of such a situation when she first planned her wedding as a child. Then there was Robb—Robert Cregan Stark. She had not planned on him either, but he had brought her so much joy, and he changed everything.

Ned might have tried to discover what she was thinking as he moved above her, so she reached above her and held his face, brought his head to hers so she could show him, could tell him what she was thinking without ruining the moment. He was her husband, her lover, her best friend, and her confidante, trusting him with more information than she trusted anyone else, even if she kept her memories and thoughts of his brother to herself. He was hers, and she was unequivocally his and no amount of remembering or revisiting hypotheticals would change that.

 **When they had finished, Ned rolled off and climbed** **from** * their bed, seemingly satisfied after she climaxed and he followed suit, his fingers being able to do what his penis could not in the moment. While she grabbed at their white cotton sheets to cover her nakedness, he sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, a sheen of sweat covering him. Catelyn would never describe a man as glistening, and certainly not when he was sweating, but the word was what came to her mind as she observed her husband. She leaned across the bed and placed a hand on his back, rubbing back and forth slowly in the way that had always soothed him the past. He shifted, glancing back at her as her hand grazed his skin.

“What bothers you, Ned?” she said softly, and she could feel her face contort with her confusion. This was not how he normally was, and the way he had just made love to her was most out of the ordinary. Last month had marked twenty-six years since the first night they slept together and next month would mark the same for their marriage, and though that night and their marriage was unplanned, she was still his wife and she had made vows that she had every intention of keeping.

Her husband took a deep breath. “I don’t know if I can survive this summer,” he said, sounding more defeated than she had ever heard him sound before. There was vulnerability there, and fear too, two things Eddard Stark rarely showed.

She sat up and inched her entire body towards his, the sheets falling to her waist, not bothering to care about the chill she felt on her skin, also sweaty from their exertions. She pressed her body into his back as she wrapped her arms around his chest, smaller than the chest she used to wrap her arms around, and clasped her hands in front of his heart.

“One day down,” she whispered as she placed her chin on his shoulder, “just seven weeks and six more to go.”

She felt his chest expand as he sighed. “But that’s seven weeks and six more days of waiting to answer a question I don’t want to answer, seven weeks and six more days of listening to Cersei insult our family, and seven weeks and six more days of having people here who don’t belong.”

His voice followed a crescendo as he ranted, reaching a peak when he finished his sentence. Catelyn could not deny the truth of his words. She had cringed as Cersei and Joffrey had brought up his successes at the University of Southern California—whose board had historically reserved a place for Lannisters, and Tywin Lannister currently occupied that seat—and mentioned this Margaery Tyrell who was now occupying Sansa’s ex-boyfriend. It took all of her southern hospitality and well-bred manners to keep a neutral face and not let the wolf that she had grown into since marrying Ned come out a defend her children. Cersei may be cat-like in her actions, watching her prey and smacking it around, tiring it out before she attacked, but Catelyn was the proverbial wolf-mother who would stop at nothing to defend her pups. The only thing that troubled her now was that dinner early that same evening had been mere play for Cersei, her attempt to tire them out before she attacked, and it made Catelyn nervous for the imminent offensive. She may not have the mind for warfare and battle that her husband, her stepson, and her son—soon, her daughter—possessed, but she knew how to defend her territory when it came to the society pages.

“I don’t think I can be Vice President,” he admitted, his head bowing as he did. When her response was only silence, he turned to look at her, and she lifted her head from his shoulder to make it easier for him to make eye contact with her. “What do you think?”

 **His eyes were haunted, his voice thick with doubt.*** It was moments like this when Catelyn would fall in love with him all over again.

“I think you would make a wonderful Vice President,” she admitted. She had made a vow on July 18th, 1987 to true to him, and she was not lying in that moment. Ned Stark, with his focus on small government but protectiveness of American citizens, with his work in regards to mental healthcare and socialized medicine, and his support of keeping the government out of the personal lives of the citizens could do a great deal of good for the country. He was a beloved Republican in the state of New York—a remarkable feat—and the most popular governor in the country, and with good reason.

“I have more work to do here, in New York, and I don’t want to go to D.C.,” he argued, sounding more childish as he continued, though she could not bring herself to judge him for it.

She unclasped her hands, dragging them across his chest to his biceps, before turning his body to her while also moving herself to bring them face-to-face, upper body-to-upper body.

“You can still do that work at Number One Observatory Circle, if you _want_ to,” she said, holding his steel grey eyes with her own. She used to think his eyes were cold, represented the ice that was inside ever since Ashara’s death, not to mention they were nothing like Brandon’s forge hot grey. Over time, she grew to love his eyes, began to shiver in the best way whenever he looked at her, really _looked_ at her with them. In this moment, she knew she had him.

“Would you still want me if I didn’t want to?” he said, his voice an echo inside of her.

“Would I want you?” she repeated, feeling as though she had been slapped in the face. “Of course, I would still want you, Ned. You are my husband, the father of my children, my life for the past two-and-a-half decades. Of course, I would still want you.”

He nodded absent-mindedly, and she felt even more pain at the idea that he did not believe her.

“What do I always say about us? What did my father teach me?” she said, her voice reaching a desperate pitch to hide the hurt she felt.

“Family, duty, honor,” he said, punctuating each word.

“Family, duty, honor,” she repeated. “ _You_ are my family, I have a duty to _you_ , and I honor _you_ and _have_ honored you for over twenty years. If you want the Vice Presidency, if you think some good could come from it, then I will follow you there. But if you feel that your gifts—your honesty, your lack of decorum surrounding so-called ‘Washington propriety’—would be best utilized _here_ , in New York, then I will gladly stay by your side. The choice is yours, Ned. I think there is good to both options, it is only up to you to decide what _you_ want.”

“You’re making me feel selfish,” he turned his gaze away from her, though he kept his body facing her, and Catelyn knew that was a good sign.

“Why?”

“Because you’re making it revolve around _me_ ,” he said bitterly, “when it will affect _our_ children.”

“Then talk to me,” she pushed. “What are you afraid of?”

“We will remove Bran and Rickon from the place they have known their whole lives,” he stated. “It took us long enough to find a place that worked for Rickon. We can’t guarantee that there is a place in the capitol that will also fit him, and his needs.”

“Washington, D.C. has some of the best options for private and alternative schools in the country,” she argued. “I know it took us awhile to find Skagos, but there is surely a place in the capitol, or near the capitol, that will help his emotional and behavioral struggles.” Even after the diagnosis, she still could not bring herself to call it a ‘disturbance’, as the psychiatrist had.

“And you and I both know that _throwing_ a book at Bran teaches him more about gravity and physics and what is actually inside of the book than any school can,” she continued, exasperated, but she still could not suppress the pride she felt at Bran’s brilliance. “Arya is going to South Carolina and then God knows where, while Sansa if off to Oxford and after that returning to Harvard. Robb is taking over Stark Enterprises and Jon is entering the NYPD. Our children are accounted for, and you know I will be happy wherever I am. So where do you want to be?”

He looked at her, examining her face just as he had when they were making love.

“Family, duty, honor,” he enunciated once more. “I have always thought of Robert as a brother, and it is my duty to serve at the pleasure of the president.”

She smiled in her reserved way at him. “What about honor?”

He looked at her, his chin getting high and jutting out as he did, as he proud showed on his face. “There is great honor in serving the country. I have already been a solider for it, and if I have to, then I will be a servant of it.”

Catelyn nodded at her husband then, proud of him and the influence she had on him. She could not bring herself to bring him down with mentions of what being Robert Baratheon’s Vice President would mean, could not bear to acknowledge that Jon Arryn did his best, but Robert had made decision after decision that negatively affected the country. Ned Stark was her husband, and she would support him whether he was a Governor, a Vice President, a businessman, or a working class man. He had won her heart as well as her, and she would support him as he had supported her through five pregnancies and countless charity events that she insisted on supporting. She may have been born a Tully, but now she was Stark, and she had every intention of making the world a better place for her children to inherit. She was a wolf-mother, after all, and she knew how to navigate the waters of most places and Washington was not a place that frightened her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *from GRRM's _A Game of Thrones_


	11. ARYA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after the First Family's invasion of Summerfalls, Arya goes for a run after storming away from the clearing the night before, and then encounters a few of her family members as she starts her day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter got away from me a bit, mostly because I enjoy writing sister stuff. I myself having a sister whom I often want to simultaneously punch and hug found quite a bit of experience with which imbue the Sansa-Arya dynamic...but which also may result in some plot-less meandering, but it at least establishes some characterization and themes. Also, I've had a few glasses of wine while writing this (Hemingway's lemonade, you know?), and I recognize that there is some repetition in word choice. Feedback is welcome, as always. Hope you enjoy!

**June 2013 - The Hamptons**

Arya’s running form was far from perfect, though she had worked on her posture and breathing enough to ensure that she was as fast as she could be. She may not have the long legs that Sansa was graced with or natural muscle that Jon and Robb seemed to be blessed with, but she had an athleticism that and determination that her older siblings did not, and at least _that_ made Arya happy. She had been compared to her siblings ever since she was child, and the comparisons were rarely in Arya’s favor.

Despite the imperfections in her person and in her form, Arya continued run. Her iPhone told her she was almost finished with her third mile, and she had clocked in at twenty-three-minutes so far—her fastest time yet. The marines required a thirty-one-minute three-mile time for someone her age and gender—it was twenty-eight-minutes for men, and Arya thought she could beat that—and she had every intention of exceeding expectations in this. This was something she could beat Sansa in, something that she could even surpass Jon or Robb in, something that was hers and hers alone.

She slowed her pace only slightly when the house was in her sights. Summerfalls had 1000-feet of private beachfront, so she knew she was almost finished with her morning run whenever she saw the white building. She would be able to slow to walk soon, as soon as her phone started making musical beats to let her know she reached three miles and would be able to slow to walk before stopping her morning routine altogether.

Her phone started making those sounds as her sneaker-clad feet crossed the threshold from the sand to the wide expanse of grass that constituted Summerfalls’ backyard. Arya gradually switched from a slow run to a jog to a power walk before she walked off any shin pain she felt from her exertions. She had done this ever since she came to the beach house this summer, and was committed to continuing her running until she left for South Carolina in August. She was a Stark, was the third Stark of her generation to become a Marine, and she had no intentions of letting down over ten generations of Starks in the United States Military, had no plans to ruin a legacy that was over a century in the making. Jon would be a cop, Robb would take over Stark Enterprises, and Sansa will make a wonderful politician’s wife, but Arya would continue the Stark legacy. That is, until Rickon or one of Jon’s or Robb’s children decided to serve their country. There was always a Stark in every war that the United States fought. Their great-grandfather had fought in Europe, their grandfather Rickard Stark had served in Korea, and their father had been in Lebanon with the President back in the 1980s; Robb and Jon had been in Iraq and Afghanistan, and likewise Arya would go where she was needed. _Starks serve_ , she had been told by her father ever since she was a child. _We go where we need to, and we do as we are told by better men than us_. She knew where her duty was, knew it was more than the chef in the kitchen, the head of the household, or as the board member of a charity that did little to help, as her mother seemed to content to do. That was not Arya Minisa Stark, and she wanted to do things very differently from how her mother did.

She approached the sliding glass door to the kitchen that her mother had so painstakingly redesigned in her futile attempts to leave her Tully mark on the Stark property. Before the door had even opened, Arya’s ears were greeted with the shrill sounds of Sansa and Jeyne Poole cooing over something or other that she could not care less about, knowing them. Jeyne had always followed Sansa like a puppydog—though nowhere near as embarrassing as how she followed Theon Greyjoy around like an infatuated sex kitten—so it made sense that she would be gossiping with Sansa in these early morning hours. Arya glanced at the clock as she crossed the threshold of the sliding door and saw that is was not yet 8:00 AM. _Fucking hell, they’re already at it_.

“What are you two up to this early?” she said in an attempt at brevity, but she knew her own bitterness and jealousy would never let that comment sound humorous. Arya looked over her sister and her sister’s best friend: they were both wearing casual clothes, yoga pants and loose t-shirts by the looks of it—Sansa in dark grey pants with an aqua-colored stripe at across her hips and Jeyne in a thin neon orange shirt and magenta-colored printed capris, the bright colors of the two girls in direct contrast with the black running halter and bike shorts that Arya was wearing to prevent chafing during her running regime. _How apt_ , Arya thought bitterly.

Sansa’s expression immediately changed from mirthful to secretive, and Jeyne’s face made it seem like there was conspiracy in the air not moments before.

“Nothing,” Sansa said quickly, and Arya rolled her eyes. Her sister was always quick when she was lying. It had made picking on Sansa easy when they were younger, but now that Arya was eighteen, she was just annoyed by how secretive Sansa could be. Jeyne’s smirk in Sansa’s direction did nothing to make Arya any less curious, and she hated Jeyne for that. Sansa seemed so willing to let Jeyne into that sanctuary to which Arya seemed perennially denied entrance.

Arya shut the door behind her before she went to the pantry to grab some oats.

“Went for a run this morning, I see?” Jeyne pointed out the obvious as she sipped her purple-colored smoothie. She and Sansa seemed to be perpetually drinking smoothies, usually soy-berry, occasionally mango coconut, or some other bullshit that they deemed nutritious—it had always seemed to Arya that the foods Sansa preferred never served Jeyne’s complexion or figure well.

“Indeed,” Arya said, somewhat dumbfounded by Jeyne’s obvious observation. She set a pot of water on the stovetop to high heat.

“I should probably go for one before lunch,” Jeyne said wistfully.

“Jeyne, we did yoga an hour ago,” Sansa said evenly. Arya wondered where Sansa got her patience from as she rifled through the baking cupboards for her condiments.

“Yes, but not everyone can only do 30 minutes of yoga and look like you,” Jeyne said. Arya could tell there was envy there instead of jealousy, figuring out long ago that nothing could separate Sansa and Jeyne. Arya looked at Sansa, sizing up her sister for the millionth time. Though Arya never worried about what she ate, never had to, she too was envious of Sansa’s height and lack of an exercise routine, at least in Arya’s eyes. “Not all of us are blessed with the Stark metabolism that you and your sister have.”

Arya saw Jeyne shift out of the corner of her eye, and realized that Jeyne was pointing at her. Arya looked at Jeyne, had to fight the urge to glare at her too, suddenly feeling stupid for grabbing chocolate chips in addition to the nuts she grabbed from her mother’s baking center cupboards.

“Chocolate chips and nuts on your oatmeal?” Jeyne raised her eyebrow at Arya. It unfortunately reminded Arya of how Jeyne used to call her Horseface, and she could still feel how readily the tears pooled in her eyes when she walked away from Jeyne after that moment, how Sansa did nothing when it happened. Everything about Jeyne as a twelve-year-old could still make Arya angry, even eight years after the fact.

“I like chocolate chips in my oatmeal,” Arya said offhandedly, though she now had every intention of sticking it to Jeyne that she could afford to have chocolate for breakfast.

“Do you want a smoothie too, Arya?” Sansa said somewhat cheerfully.

“Fine,” Arya said, as best she knew how to accept kindness. Her mother and Sansa’s pleasantries always seemed foreign to her. Robb and Jon’s expectations of respect, for years, had seemed to make more sense to her than anything else did when it came to interacting with others.

“Berry? Mango? What are you in the mood for?”

“We still have frozen raspberries?”

“Yep!” Sansa sounded chipper, Arya felt annoyed. “One raspberry smoothie coming up!”

Arya returned to the stove now that the water was boiling, and carefully poured some oats and cinnamon into the hot liquid, eyeballing it rather than measuring anything. Her mother had always told her she was a disaster waiting to happen, _all impatience and no finesse_. Sansa always used measuring cups when she was in the kitchen, as she was doing now to ensure the almond milk-to-frozen raspberry ratio was just right.

“Anybody want any eggs?” Arya asked, realizing how hungry she actually was now that she could smell the oatmeal.

“Yes please,” Sansa said. Sometimes, Arya thought that food was Arya and Sansa’s version of talking about the weather.

“Great, can you make them?” Arya said, bending over to grab a cast iron skillet out of the cupboard.

Sansa looked at her, sticking her hip out and cocking her head. “Did you even have any intention of making eggs when you offered?”

Arya looked at her sister and smiled.

“What would you do if I said ‘no’?” Sansa asked testily, though Arya had annoyed her sister enough over the years that this moment was not one of them.

“Probably wait until mom came down for breakfast.” Arya had told Sansa years ago that she would only lie to her if it was necessary.

“I’ll make you eggs, let me just finish your smoothie, master,” Sansa said with some bite, though Sansa’s version of bite barely pinched Arya. The noise of the blender filled the room, which gave Arya the chance to slice a banana into a bowl while Jeyne filed her nails. As she was cutting, Arya looked at her nails. She could not understand the need to file nails. She just cut hers every week or two, was there something she was missing about personal nail hygiene and maintenance?

The blender stopped. “How was your run?” Sansa asked as she poured the red smoothie into a glass for Arya. “Scrambled eggs?”

Arya nodded as she scraped the oatmeal out of the pot into her bowl of sliced banana, nuts, and chocolate chips. She flicked her eyes up to steal a glance at Jeyne, who was watching the bowl of oatmeal closely, enviously, almost drooling, in fact.

“Jeyne?” Sansa asked as she passed by her friend on her way to the fridge, placing the smoothie on the counter. Arya placed herself on the stool in front of the smoothie glass before indulging in her breakfast.

“Mmm, I think this smoothie is filling me up, so no,” Jeyne said, still eying Arya’s first breakfast. Jeyne drank the last bit of her smoothie, and then stood up. “Actually, I think I’ll go get changed and go for a run now.”

Jeyne left quickly, leaving Sansa a bit confused and Arya feeling evilly victorious.

“Do you want cheese in your eggs?” Sansa asked again, still at the fridge. Arya nodded as she continued to scarf down the oatmeal. Arya preferred big breakfasts, light lunches, and then pigging out at dinner. Scrambled eggs with cheese sounded so good to her right then. “Sorry, I asked you before then didn’t let you answer. How was your run?”

“Good,” Arya said between bites. Sansa shot her a dubious look as she cracked eggs into a bowl.

“Good?”

“I finished at three miles in twenty-six-minutes today,” she said quietly, wanting to hide the pride she felt. It was her best speed yet, and she’s been working to beat her previous fastest time. She had so few things to be proud of, it felt like, and she did not want anyone to know that there was something precious to her, something that could be used against her. Though no one had told her the story, she had put together enough facts about Sansa and Joffrey to know how much secrets could sometimes save someone from being hurt.

“Twenty-six-minutes?!” Sansa sounded incredulous. “That’s an average of…”

Arya had to fight the smirk that wanted to form from Sansa’s struggle with math. Sansa might be better at just about everything, but Arya had been the better math student since Sansa never had a head for numbers. “Eight minutes, forty seconds, or whereabouts. It wasn’t exactly twenty-six-minutes, mind you.”

“What time do you need again?”

“Thirty-one minutes.”

“Arya!” Sansa sounded delighted, a smile forming on her face as she poured the egg mix into the cast iron skillet. Sansa looked like she belonged in the kitchen, given how maternal and domestic she looked whenever she cooked. Sansa always looked perfect, even when baking or cleaning. It had annoyed Arya, now it just confused her, and also caused some minor resentment. All the same, she would still protect Sansa when push came to shove, and she knew full well that this summer would be that push.

“What about push-ups or sit-ups or things like that?” Sansa turned to face Arya while she remained by the stovetop.

“Oh yeah, things you’ve never done outside of P.E.” Arya teased.

“Yeah yeah,” Sansa waved her off as she stirred the pan.

“I’m all set on those,” Arya gave as little information as possible. She had always had upper-body strength, had been able to reach the minimum requirement easily. It was running that she wanted to focus up, because she wanted to start practicing running with weight on her back to prepare for a situation in which she would have to run with her army gear.

“Are you excited or nervous?” Sansa asked, not looking at her know, and Arya thought she could hug her for it. Arya was never one for attention being on her, despite her uncouth bluntness. Having eyes on her when discussing personal things made her uncomfortable, and usually unwilling to share.

“Those kind of mean the same thing, San,” Arya said passively. Sansa shook her head and smiled, and Arya felt comfortable continuing. “Yes. Either. Both, I mean. It’s getting closer each day, and I’m getting more nervous. But I know I can do it.”

Sansa smiled at her sister. “Of course you can do it.”

“I’m a Stark, I know,” Arya huffed as she repeated what Jon and Robb had told both her and Sansa since they were pre-teens, meant to toughen the Stark girls up, as though they did not know how to take care of themselves otherwise.

“I don’t mean that way,” Sansa said softly. “You have really good focus, when you want to. You’ve accomplished everything you’ve set your mind to. I think you’ll do whatever you want to because you can.”

Arya was never one for gentle words, or sweet nothings, or compliments, but being spoken of so highly by her perfect older sister made her want to cry right then. She could feel the pin-prickle of tears at the corner of her eyes, a bittersweet feeling as always, and had to think of other things, of anything—of making out with Ned Dayne, of enlisting, of graduating, of watching Jon get slapped by Ygritte, of watching Sansa throw up when she had too much to drink—anything that would stop the waterworks that were threatening the peace in the kitchen.

Suddenly, a plate of perfectly scrambled eggs was placed in front of her. Feeling the tears evaporate from her eyes as they took in the beautiful sight of the food before her, Arya took a deep breath, quietly, so as to avoid Sansa’s attention. Sensing that Sansa, rarely so giving with her praise of Arya, might be open to talking to Arya, she decided to test the waters a bit to see how far she could get. Sansa sat down on the stool beside Arya and dug into her own plate of eggs.

“So, uh, what were you and Jeyne talking about this morning?” Arya asked delicately, or at least as delicately as she was capable of doing. Tact had never been a strength of hers.

Sansa glanced up at Arya from her plate, and shook her head carefully at Arya.

“It wasn’t about me, was it?” Arya said with a laugh, knowing that self-deprecation or self-consciousness would always get Sansa to spill.

Her sister shook her head avidly to dispel any notion that they were talking about Arya behind her back, not that Arya thought she was a frequent topic of their conversations—considering how much they talked about Orlando Bloom and Prince Harry when they were teenagers, and of course Joffrey and Theon too—but she knew that the enmity between her and Jeyne as well as some of the pranks she pulled on Sansa would not go unmentioned by them in private.

Sansa looked up to ceiling in a very ostentatious manner, obvious for Sansa anyway, and it took a moment for Arya to understand what she was trying to tell her. Sansa looked back to Arya and shook her head.

“Not here, not now,” she said. Arya felt a surge of annoyance that Sansa could talk to Jeyne about such things when the Baratheons were upstairs, but would not dare to do the same with her. It was yet another reminder of how Arya was subpar in the eyes of her family, all but Jon, anyway.

Arya just nodded back at Sansa, feeling dejected and rejected. She knew if Sansa really wanted to tell her anything, wanted her to know what they talking about, then she would suggest they go for a walk or talk later that night in the clearing. Sansa said nothing as she continued to eat.

“Did anything happen after I left last night?” Arya asked, kicking herself for feeling the need to fill the silence with conversation. Sansa had always been the blabberer when it came to that.

Sansa shook her head, and then reconsidered.

“Well, Theon definitely crossed into blackout territory,” Sansa said, hiding the smirk that came over her. Arya remembered the first time she had seen Theon blackout, the night he and Sansa had made out three years ago. She had been amused at the time, seeing perfect little Sansa slumming it with Robb’s possibly alcoholic best friend, Sansa who had wanted to breakup with Joffrey at the time, who had yet to do so, had been willing to cheat on him and possibly ruin the perfect fairytale written out for them. That was the first night Arya realized there was something more to Sansa wanting to leave Joffrey.

“As per usual,” Arya said with a hyperbolic sneer. Theon was another person she liked to make fun of. She was confused as to why her family seemed so intent to be best friends with idiots. Her father and the buffoon of a President, charming Robb and alcoholic Theon, perfect Sansa and little Miss Jeyne. She was unsure if Jon, Bran, or Rickon even had friends. There were times she felt like she did not even have friends, considering she had slept with most of them, they being friends with benefits more than actual friends. As much as Theon and Jeyne annoyed her, she still found herself jealous of Robb and Sansa for having platonic friends, whom they could gossip with, when she had no one.

“He will definitely have a headache and need some aspirin today,” Sansa added before scooping a bite of her scrambled eggs into her mouth. Sansa even ate delicately, while Arya always imagined herself wolfing her food down rather than savoring it. She often wondered what it was like to be like Sansa, to take time with things instead of rushing through them. It was yet another way she was jealous of her older, taller, more beautiful sister who went to Harvard like so many other Starks did, like Arya was unlikely to.

“It might be one of those mornings where we burst into his room banging on pots and pans to wake him up,” Arya deadpanned in faux-concern for Theon’s wellbeing. “We wouldn’t want him to oversleep now, would we?”

Sansa shoulders shook as she swallowed her mouthful of eggs, the last of her plate.

“Arya, you’re horrible,” Sansa giggled.

“I am just looking out for my brethren,” Arya continued with her serious tone.

“Yeah, you were really worried about me when I woke up with a similar kind of headache a few years ago, if I recall correctly,” Sansa placed her hand on her chin as though she was struggling to remember that wonderful morning. Sansa had both made out with Theon and thrown up the night before, and Arya took it upon herself to not only bank one of their mother’s beloved copper pots with a spoon, but poor water of Sansa to wake her up. She had slept to noon after all, and their parents were starting to wonder what was wrong with her.

“Mom and dad were asking where you were,” Arya said in mock defense of herself, a grin plain as day on her face since she did not even bother to hide it. “What kind of sister lets her older sister, who was a mere _seventeen_ at the time get in trouble for drinking, hmm?”

“Not to mention, the clearing and that secret shelf in the basement would have kaput after that, right?” Sansa said with a grin.

“Not to mention _that_ ,” Arya said, contorting her face to show the despair they would have felt at losing both things.

“Yeah, you were a peach that day,” Sansa said semi-sweetly. This was the Sansa that Arya preferred, the one who reminisced about shenanigans they have pulled. Only, Sansa participated in so few of those occasions that there were few enough occasions to reminisce about.

“So, what are your plans for the day?” Sansa asked, in her business-as-usual voice. Arya rolled her eyes at her sister and her need to plan. _Type A for anal retentive_.

“Well, I need to shower,” Arya said, thinking carefully. “Then I was thinking about doing a little bit of nothing. And maybe later, a little more of nothing.”

“Gosh, you’re so busy.”

“I know,” Arya said seriously. She liked when Sansa played along to sarcasm. It took Sansa long enough to figure out that was the best way to communicate with her, and it felt good that they were at a place when they could just go with it. “What about you?”

Sansa’s eyes practically rolled back into her head, as they often did whenever she had to remember something or think deeply about another thing.

“Well, I wanted to go out to the beach or at least the yard to read my book.”

“What book?” Arya said before drinking from her smoothie. She had to give it to Sansa: the girl knew how to make one mean smoothie. Arya found herself wondering how much alcohol to add and what kind to give it a bit of a kick.

“ _Persuasion_.”

“What the fuck is that?” Arya said, rolling her eyes at Sansa thinking Arya had any idea what that book was.

“Jane Austen.”

“Ahh, boring shit,” Arya said, making her signature “yikes!”-face at Sansa before drinking more of her smoothie.

“She is _not_ boring!” Sansa sounded so taking a bit Arya would have thought she spoke ill of their mother instead of an author who’d been dead for two-hundred some-odd years.

“Yeah yeah,” Arya waved Sansa’s protestations off, as though she really cared about books. She was just trying to make conversation.

“Well, I’ll read some of that, then maybe go for a swim, and then I don’t know.”

“When do Mya and _Myranda_ get here?” Arya could not help but enunciated Myranda Royce’s name in semi-veiled disgust. There was something about the girl that she just did not like or trust. Mya was awesome, being nothing like the frilly Jeyne and Myranda, but most of Sansa’s friends rubbed her the wrong way, and she could not always put her a finger on why.

“Two weeks,” Sansa said, and it was clear that she could not wait for their arrival.

Arya nodded, knowing what she was about to say might be a bit mean, even for her. “Jeyne not doing it for ya?”

“Arya!” Sansa admonished. “Why can’t you be nice, for once?”

“I _am_ nice,” she argued, “to the people I care to be nice to.”

“Yeah, Arya, sometimes that is not enough. You need to make connections with people, even if you don’t care to be nice to them.”

“Like Sandor Clegane?” she said quietly, unsure why exactly Sansa showed such loyalty to the brute the night before. It was possibly the most puzzling thing Arya had witnessed. It was all the more confusing considering Sansa and Joffrey’s history.

Sansa’s eyes snapped to Arya, and Arya struggled to read her sister in that moment, unsure of what she was thinking or feeling at that clarification.

“ _What?_ ” Sansa sounded genuinely confused.

“Why do you and Robb and Jon seem so happy to have Clegane join things that are family-only, even with Theon and Jeyne there?”

“Arya, not here,” Sansa shook her head vigorously as she slid off of her stool and reached for her and Arya’s breakfast plates, stacking them neatly on top of one another before grabbing Arya’s bowl of oatmeal.

“San, he stared at you for a full-on minute before he sat next to you,” Arya said. She could feel her eyebrows raising on her face, an expression she often made when she was either defending herself or confused, in this case both. “He looked like a rabid dog, for Christ’s sake.”

“Arya!” Sansa whispered even as her tone became harsh, her eyes controlled but almost wild in their embarrassment and fury. “Stop.”

Sansa’s tone told Arya that this was not an issue that she was willing to discuss. _Next time_ , Arya thought to herself. She had awoken the wolf that so rarely reared its head in Sansa, and that meant that there was much more than met the surface.

“ _Sorry_ ,” Arya said in mockery of Sansa’s seriousness. _She can be so ridiculous sometimes_. “I guess I’ll go take a shower now.” She had enunciated her words that time, punctuated all of the syllables for maximum effect, hoping like they felt like a punch in the gut to Sansa.

Arya walked to the door, turning her back on her sister as soon as possible.

“Don’t worry, _I’ll_ clean up after _you_ ,” she heard Sansa mumble under her breath.

“You are the responsible Stark, after all,” Arya mumbled back, both sisters knowing full well that the other could hear them.

Arya walked through the foyer to the spiral staircase, ascending the stairs quickly, practically stomping as she did, as was her way. She had always been the loudest of her siblings, walking included. When she reached the top of the stairs, she looked from her left to her right, glancing down both sides of the long corridor to see if anyone was going to check on the stomping. She was dismayed when no heads poked out of the doors. She turned to walk to her room, one of the few safe places left for her at Summerfalls now that the Baratheons were here, plus some token Lannisters thrown into the mix. She passed by her parents’ master suite and saw movement through the open door as she walked by.

“Arya!” her mother’s voice pierced through the hall despite not even being in it. “I thought I heard you coming up the stairs.”

Arya rolled her eyes. “What’s up ma?” she said brazenly as she back-pedaled to the door to her parents’ bedroom, hoping her mother would pick up on her tone and word choice. Once she had a view of the room again, she saw that her mother was stripping their bed. _Eww, did they have sex last night?_ Arya remembered changing her bedsheets and washing them after Ned or Lem came to her dorm room. It felt gross not to clean the remnants of their visits, and she cringed at the thought of her parents having sex down the hall from her, when the First Family was on the other end of the house, even if they called it a separate wing.

“I want to talk to you about Myrcella,” her mother said as she tossed the bed cover in a laundry basket. Arya had to fight another cringe.

“What about her?”

“Her birthday is next week,” her mother began as she reached for the basket and clutched her long fingers around the top edge. “Cersei has not given me a guest list of people to invite to the party we have planned.”

“Mom of the year, am I right?” Arya grinned wickedly at her mother, knowing that she was hopelessly baiting her ever-polite mother.

“Arya,” her mother’s calm warning tone always sent shivers through Arya and her siblings on the off chance she used it. Arya supposed that was the power of that tone, considering how infrequently she and her siblings heard it, how majorly they had fucked up when they did. “I was thinking that you could spend some time with her today and this week, just so she feels at-home for her party. I suspect she may not have very many friends, not that Cersei is being negligent.”

Arya snorted at her mother since she thought both things were the likely cause of her mother’s request.

“What was that?” her mother said carefully, sounding kind but Arya knew there was an ever-present threat of anger underneath her mother’s surface. Her mom had long since mastered the art of lulling her children into complacency before striking with her maternal wiles.

“It was what it sounded like,” Arya gave her mother a mock-grin.

Her mother stared at her blankly, another one of her parenting moves, and despite the fact that Arya could spot it easily, knowing about it made it no less powerful or frightening to behold.

“Myrcella and I have nothing in common,” Arya tried to argue, tried to remain steadfast, defiant, bold, but she knew her voice had edged on a whine.

“You both just graduated high school,” her mother countered, walking from the other side of her bed, the laundry basket practically stuck to her hip as she moved.

“Great, we’re the same age,” Arya said. “Joffrey and Sansa are the same age. Are you going to ask them to spend time together?”

“Arya, you know that is not the same.”

“Yeah, sure, but Sansa would probably be better suited to hanging out with Myrcella than me,” Arya shrugged her shoulders all while trying to hide her anger.

“Do you really think Sansa wants to hang out with the younger sister of her ex-boyfriend?”

“Do you really think I want to hang out with the younger sister of my sister’s ex-boyfriend?” Arya was incredulous at mother’s request.

“Arya, you are an incredibly loyal sister,” her mother began, her own voice bordering on exasperation as she spoke to the challenging daughter, the one who looked nothing like her mother and everything like the sister her dad lost over twenty years ago. “But I know that you are also a loyal daughter, and making Myrcella and Tommen feel welcome is how you can honor your father this summer.”

Arya sighed at her mother, hid the huff that was building at this ridiculous request. _Myrcella fucking Baratheon? She likes dresses, she’s going to college, she’s Cersei’s daughter. I would rather gouge my eyes out than spend time with her_.

“Fine,” Arya huffed at her mother, choosing to guilt trip the woman now since arguing had gotten her nowhere. She spun around, quick as she was in her sneakers, and walked away from her parents’ room to make her way to her room, so she could pout and brood in silence rather than deal with the cracked behavior of her family. She walked by Jon’s room and saw that the door was open, Jon sitting in the chair by his window, the one that faced out so he could enjoy the view while he read, his feet on the open window sill with a book in his hands. He was clearly concentrating, enjoying a moment’s peace in this summer of infiltration. Arya obviously had to interrupt his idyll.

“What’s up doc?” Arya said, her tone somber so Jon would understand what she needed right then.

He turned to look at her, his eyes wide as they peeled away from the book he was reading.

“Nothing,” he said, a smiling growing on one side of his mouth. “Just reading.”

“Whatcha reading?” she said, waltzing into his room, shutting the door behind her in hopes that they could have some privacy, and finally collapsing onto his freshly made bed. Arya had always loved messing up his bed when she was younger, until she realized that her mother yelled at him for not making his bed.

“This book,” Jon began, shifting his head and the book in his hand to read the cover.

“Really? I had no idea.”

Jon grimaced at her sarcasm.

“Dad gave it to me,” he said. “He got an advanced copy and thought I would like it.”

“What’s it called?”

“ _Lost Girls_ by Robert Kolker.”

“What…is that fiction?”

“True crime. About a serial killer from Long Island. Still hasn’t been found.”

“So _light_ reading?” she took great pains to keep her face blank as her brother’s expression broke into a grin.

“ _Exactly_. What’s up with you?”

“Ugh,” she sighed, and dropped her head onto the bed in hopes of hiding her face, really to hide from the world.

“What’s that now?” he said, his tone an exercise in mock-confusion and also just plain mockery.

“Sansa and Jeyne are gossiping in the kitchen, Sansa won’t tell me what about. Jeyne probably needs a psych eval, which I’ve been telling you all for years. Sandor Clegane is suddenly in my older siblings’ good graces, and none of you will tell me why. Oh, and mother wants me to spend time with Myrcella, because she has no friends and is her mother’s daughter.”

Jon just laughed at her, even as she poured her frustrations out, threw them out into the air in front of the one person who never judged her.

“Well, where do you want me start?” he asked as her turned to look out the window.

“Can any of that be fixed?” she asked sarcastically, as though her problems could be written off in one pep talk.

“Well, Myrcella is probably the best of the Baratheons. She’s friendly, she’s not mean, she seems to harbor no ill will to Sansa—unlike her mother. Of course, she’s had a crush on Robb for years, but—”

“What?!”

“Oh, come on,” he insisted. “It’s a bit obvious.”

“What?!”

“Moving on,” Jon pushed past Arya’s incredulity. “Sansa and Jeyne are probably gossiping about Theon. Sansa is just being loyal to her friend, not excluding you. I think Jeyne had hoped to hook up with Theon again this summer. Of course, he got shitfaced.”

Jon paused before he used the term. He was always modest compared to the rest of them, struggling to swear or use foul language. Arya had no idea where that came from.”

“Sandor Clegane is actually a good man, Arya,” he said carefully. “Give it time, maybe you’ll realize why, maybe you’ll realize he isn’t so bad.”

“That’ll be the day,” she said, quoting John Wayne from the movie they had watched endlessly as children, one of their father’s favorites.

“Seriously, Arya,” Jon said, in all seriousness. “Clegane is probably one of the better men I have ever met. Don’t let the fact he protects Joffrey prevent you from seeing him as he is.”

“Forget about it,” Arya said in a Brooklyn accent.

“I’m not joking,” Jon said, all humor that had been there moments ago erased. “We need to stick together this summer. We need to trust each other, even when that means that we don’t have all of the information.”

He looked to her again, searched her face for her understanding. Arya knew her face told him nothing. She had long ago mastered the blank face as long as tears were not a threat.

“Well, I think all of that over as I cleanse myself of those talks with Jeyne and Sansa and mother.”

“Alright, be a pain in the ass.”

“I am no such thing,” she said over her shoulder as she walked out of his room, practically slamming his door open so she could make her way to her bedroom, to use the bathroom inside of it so she could enjoy her shower in peace, with her iPod playing the kind of music that she liked. Every bedroom at Summerfalls had its own bathroom, and Arya was reminded of how grateful she was to the ancestors who designed the home for their foresight. A summer with the Baratheons would make all of the Stark kids grateful for the respite, as short as it may be, depending on the Stark.

She looked in the mirror, took in her messy ponytail and how the mild sweat from her run as dried and the hair closest to her scalp looked ghastly. At least she had only spoken to family, plus Jeyne. Even with her distaste for feminine things, Arya would still have been mortified if just anyone had seen her like that.

She turned the shower on, set the temperature to her preferred warm instead of scalding hot, and began to undress, the stretches she made as she did so feeling like heaven after her morning exertions. She was in shape, that was for sure, even though Sansa was practically born a supermodel, Arya had worked for the strength she felt when she stretched out and could feel her joints sing as she let them breathe. She would do what she needed to do, even if that meant early morning runs every day this summer, even if it meant tolerating Myrcella. She was a Stark after all, and a Tully too, even if she may not look it. She knew her duty, was loyal to her family, honored the requested made of her even when it was with begrudging acceptance of said request. Without that, she would be worried that she would become no one.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said a few chapters before (and maybe in more than one chapter), I feel anxious about this fic and as though I have bitten off way more than I can chew. I'm writing about a lot of things I know nothing about, breaking the cardinal rule of "write what you know". If anyone wants to be my military advisor, then you will greatly help me out because thus far I am going on a great deal of research conducted through Google and also documentaries I've watched about the U.S. Military. Any insight would be helpful, even if you have not yourself been in the U.S. Military.
> 
> As per usual, comments make my day ;)


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